Now they tell us: It takes a lot of chutzpah for Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, the chair and vice chairman of the commission appointed to study events around the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, to write a book now that says the commission’s findings were wrong. When the commission issued its report, it was considered to be the final statement on the government’s response to the attacks. Now we learn:
The Sept. 11 commission was so frustrated with repeated misstatements by the Pentagon and FAA about their response to the 2001 terror attacks that it considered an investigation into possible deception, the panel’s chairmen say in a new book.
Republican Thomas Kean and Democrat Lee Hamilton also say in “Without Precedent” that their panel was too soft in questioning former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani – and that the 20-month investigation may have suffered for it.
The book, a behind-the-scenes look at the investigation, recounts obstacles the authors say were thrown up by the Bush administration, internal disputes over President Bush’s use of the attacks as a reason for invading Iraq, and the way the final report avoided questioning whether U.S. policy in the Middle East may have contributed to the attacks.
Kean and Hamilton said the commission found it mind-boggling that authorities had asserted during hearings that their air defenses had reacted quickly and were prepared to shoot down United Airlines Flight 93, which appeared headed toward Washington.
All of this begs the questions: Why didn’t Kean and Hamilton speak up at the time about the obstacles the Bush crowd was putting in their way? Why are they telling us now? Could it be C.Y.A. in case the Democrats take back Congress and real investigations are launched that put the commission’s report to shame? Or maybe they fear a Congressional investigation into how the 9/11 commission investigation was compromised that might cast these august pols in a bad light.
The American people need to know if the 9/11 commission’s report was a sham. If so, a lot of money was wasted apparently to provide cover to President Bush during the 2004 elections.
My MOM and her MOM had a time proven method of teaching “younguns” the wages of telling a lie: they washed the culprits mouth with a liberal application of “Grandma’s Lye Soap” which was indeed an “attention getter” as the homemade stuff WAS made with Sodium Hydroxide….common lye!
To bad the folks of our “ruling elite” missed those lessons, and all the other lessons in history about the costs of being caught in a pack of lies, now isn’t it?
That’s not what “beg the question” means.
We are at a crucial moment in history. If after all the proven lies of the Bush-Cheney administration and now the wiki-leaks exposure of corruption and deceit are not enough to force the “media” to seriously and authentically look at the FACTS about 9/11, including the fact that the co-chairs have written a book saying that their own commission report is not true and that great efforts were made to prevent truth from even reaching the commission, then we must accept the fact that fear and hypnosis rather than courage and conscious awareness will lead us into the future.
Four Arrows
author of American Assassination and 19 other “truth-seeking” books