9/11 report fulfills political mission
Omissions save face for Bush
by Mark Dunlea
Green Party of New York State

	Mark Dunlea

While the report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks in the U.S. documents many of the failures of U.S. intelligence agencies leading up to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it leaves many basic questions unanswered.

Much of this is directly attributable to the limited charge given to the commission and to the significant conflicts of interest among commission members, all prominent politicians or members of the national security team. Controlling the damage to the president, Congress, the foreign policy establishment and the two major parties was the true mandate of the commission members.

Among the commission's notable failures is the lack of explanation of who paid for the attacks. It refused to examine the potential role of the CIA and the U.S. government in providing support over the years to such terrorists. The report fails to acknowledge that the failed invasion of Iraq has increased the risk of terrorism, though it admits that 9/11 cannot justify the curtailment of civil liberties at home.

Most curious is the commission 's assertion that the poor response by the FAA and NORAD to the hijacking and the bad communication with the rescue workers at the World Trade Center was due to "a failure of the imagination."

How is that possible when NORAD had conducted numerous training exercises in recent years under exactly the scenario that occurred? Did no one read the report Congress commissioned by former Senator Gary Hart which concluded that such a domestic terrorist attack was not a question of if but when? What about all the warnings about an impending attack given to the U.S. by Israel, Russia, France and Germany?

The commission also sweeps under the rug the assertions of Sibel Edmonds. Edmonds was hired by the FBI as a translator after 9/11. She blew the whistle on the cover-up of intelligence that names some of the culprits who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks but is now under several gag orders.
According to Edmonds, "If they were to do real investigations we would see several significant high-level criminal prosecutions in this country." Edmonds rates only a footnote in the report about insufficient translator capability in the FBI.

The commission's report avoids analyzing the political reasons why the Sept. 11 attacks took place. As Michael Scheuer, a 23-year veteran of the CIA, stated in "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror," "before you draft a policy to defeat bin Laden, you have to understand that our policies are what drives him and those who follow him...Iraq was a gift of epic proportions to Osama bin Laden and those who think like him."

The report barely mentions the role of the Israel-Palestine conflict, nor does it address the inconsistencies noted by the 9/11 Truth Movement in the government's version of what happened on 9/11.

The commission failed to explore why Mahmood Ahmed, then director of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, ordered $100,000 to be wired to lead hijacker Momahmed Atta. It failed to explain why Ahmed was meeting with the head of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on the morning of 9/11.

One foreign government issuing laudatory statements in response to the 9/11 Commission's report is Saudi Arabia. The commission reported no evidence that the "Saudi government" directly financed al-Qaida or the hijackers. The panel did criticize the lack of Saudi cooperation with U.S. investigators of al-Qaida before Sept. 11, terming the Saudis "a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism."

The Saudi government is widely considered the most corrupt in the world. The ruling family maintains power--and its control of its huge oil wealth--by literally buying off all other potential power players. It makes handsome payments to various "charitable groups," even though it is widely believed that a portion of such funds are diverted to terrorist groups.

Twenty-eight pages of a prior congressional report on 9/11 and Saudi involvement have still not been released to the public.
Family members of the 9/11 victims are less convinced that the Saudis did not play a role in financing the 9/11 attacks. Commission Chairman Thomas Kean is partners with two of the Saudi billionaires sued by 9/11 families for their roles in the attacks.

The commission does point the finger at Iran, which allowed the hijackers to pass through without stamping their passports, which might have led to increased scrutiny when they entered the U.S. However, setting off screening detectors at the airport of the morning of the hijackings didn't raise enough alarm to stop the hijackers. And in fact a number of the hijackers were being monitored by the American government, yet they were not stopped.

The commission does get it right in pointing out the threat of future terrorism. Congress dutifully issued press releases agreeing on the need for quick, corrective action and then went home for six weeks.

Investigative journalist and former FBI consultant Paul Williams warns in "Osama's Revenge: The Next 9/11: What the Media and the Government Haven't Told You," that al-Qaida plans to smuggle a half dozen suitcase-sized nuclear bombs into the U.S. to be detonated simultaneously in various cities.

Williams traces the spread of nuclear bomb development to Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear program. Khan was "pardoned" by the Pakistani president shortly after the U.S. forced his arrest for selling nuclear technology to foreign governments, including North Korea and Libya.

While the commission did accomplish some good in pointing out the failures of the CIA, FBI, Congress and the Bush administration in dealing with 9/11, it fell far short of providing a comprehensive and definitive analysis of the attacks. Much more work needs to be done. A new commission is needed, one which is directed by family members and those independent of the American foreign policy establishment.

Mark Dunlea is a former chair of the Green Party of New York State and author of the novel, Madame President: The Unauthorized Biography of the First Green Party President (http://nys.greens.org/rachel).

Back to Fall 2004