The Scum at the Top
Commentary on the Rats in Washington
9/11 panel runs into delays
By Philip Shenon
©Wednesday, July 9, 2003
St. Paul Pioneer Press
page 1
New York Times
WASHINGTON - The federal commission investigating the Sept.
11, 2001, terror attacks said Tuesday that its work was being
hampered by the failure of executive branch agencies, especially
the Pentagon and the Justice Department, to respond quickly to
requests for documents and testimony.
The panel also said the failure of the Bush administration to
allow officials to be interviewed without the presence of
government colleagues was impeding its investigation, with the
commission's chairman suggesting today that the situation
amounted to "intimidation" of the witnesses.
In what they acknowledged was an effort to bring public pressure
on the White House to meet the panel's demands for classified
information, the commission's Republican chairman and Democratic
vice chairman released a statement, declaring that they had
received only a small portion of the millions of sensitive
government documents they have requested from the executive
branch.
While praising President Bush and top aides for their personal
commitment to the panel's work, the commission's leaders said
that federal agencies under Bush's control were not cooperating
quickly or fully.
"The administration underestimated the scale of the commission's
work and the full breadth of support required," said the chairman,
Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, and
Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic member of the House from
Indiana. "The coming weeks will determine whether we will be
able to do our job within the time allotted. The task in front
of us is monumental."
Under the law creating the bipartisan, 10-member panel last year,
the commission is required to report its findings by next May.
"While thousands of documents are flowing in - some in boxes and
some digitized - most of the documents we need are still to come,"
the statement said.
The criticism Tuesday from Kean and Hamilton clearly took senior
administration officials by surprise and brought a fresh round
of attacks on the White House from congressional Democrats who
have said that the administration was trying to stonewall a
politically damaging inquiry.
Although the White House had initially opposed the creation of
an independent commission to investigate intelligence and
law-enforcement failures before the 2001 terrorist strikes, the
administration eventually came around to support the move, and
it has repeatedly pledged full cooperation.
"The president is committed to ensuring that the commission has
all the information it needs," Claire Buchan, a White House
spokeswoman, said Tuesday in response to the statement from the
panel, known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks Upon the United States. "The president has directed
federal agencies to cooperate and to do so quickly."
In their statement, Kean and Hamilton said that the "problems
that have arisen so far with the Department of Defense are
becoming particularly serious." They noted that the Pentagon
had not responded to a series of requests for evidence from
several Defense Department agencies, including the Joint Chiefs
of Staff and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which
is responsible for guarding U.S. airspace from terrorist attack.
"Delays are lengthening and agency points of contact have so far
been unable to resolve them," the statement said. "In the last
few days, we have been assured that the department's leaders will
address these concerns. We look forward to seeing the results."
Kean and Hamilton suggested that the Justice Department was
behind a government directive barring intelligence officials
from being interviewed by the panel without the presence of
intelligence agency colleagues.
At a news conference, Kean described the presence of "minders"
at the interviews as a form of intimidation. "I think the
commission feels unanimously that it's some intimidation to
have somebody sitting behind you all the time who you either
work for or works for your agency," he said.
Hamilton said that the commission "will be quite firm" in
demanding that some interviews take place without witnesses
present. "We have tried to make very clear that we reserve
the option, which we would exercise sparingly, to request
before an interview that the interview take place without an
agency representative."
In their written statement, the panel's leaders said that the
Justice Department had been "unable to resolve important issues
related" to the commission's access to evidence and testimony
from the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person facing
trial in an American court for conspiring in the Sept. 11
attacks. The department, they said, was "overdue" in supplying
other, unspecified records requested by the commission.
A Justice Department spokesman, Mark Corallo, said his department
remained "committed to assisting the commission's important work
on behalf of the United States." He added, however, that
"assembling the enormous amount of information requested takes
significant manpower and time to accomplish."
Although their intent Tuesday was clearly to create discomfort
at the White House, Kean and Hamilton said repeatedly that they
were optimistic that the panel could complete its work on time,
and that the investigation would be the most complete account
available of the events that led to the terrorist attacks in
2001.
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