Sept. 11 Panel: Bush, Clinton Not to Blame (new interview for Nightline)

[Newsjock]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3524187,00.html


By LAURENCE ARNOLD

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of a federal commission looking into the Sept. 11 attacks said Thursday that mistakes over many years left the United States vulnerable to such an attack, but he resisted pinning blame on either of the last two presidential teams.

``We have no evidence that anybody high in the Clinton administration or the Bush administration did anything wrong,'' chairman Thomas Kean said in an interview with ABC's ``Nightline'' taped for airing Thursday night.

Kean said the 10-member National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States has not decided whether to ask former President Clinton or President Bush to testify. He also said that any conclusions about the performance of high-level officials ``will be reached when we are finished with our job, not now.''

Kean sought to clarify remarks attributed to him in a CBS News report that aired Wednesday.

more

[Cush]

1. and the whitewash/backtracking begins

.....

[cthrumatrix]

13. Note : The Guardian has the story ....NOT a US media source...shocking

this is quite disappointing...this is BS that we know the data is there and it appears "for some reason"...he does not have the same tone.

[Newsjock]

17. Not really a big deal

It's an AP story that's available at the Guardian and at a bunch of U.S. media outlets. I happened to pick the Guardian link mainly because it had a good headline (for LBN title use) and because the Guardian's pages tend to load rather quickly.

[MoonAndSun]

2. Cheney must have come up from his rat hole and reamed Kean

a new one. I just knew that Kean would backtrack on his statements from yesterday. He is just another cowardly repuke who tows the bush* line. :puke:

[Wonk]

33. quicktime & mp3 here, fwiw

Wasn't quite what I'd hoped for when I read that other LBN thread about it earlier today...

5 M mp3

60 M quicktime

[sweettater]

3. Wonder who got to him?

eom

[leftofthedial]

4. "Kean sought to clarify remarks . . .

". . . attributed to him in a CBS News report that aired Wednesday."

Kean also sought to prevent the Bush GOPNAC Cabal from having his family tortured to death and having himself suicided (the usual method--shot twice in the head).

[Terwilliger]

5. It was too good to be true

Anybody who truly expects a real investigation into the actualities behind 9/11 probably thinks that the Warren Commission was complete truth.

[w13rd0]

7. It'll ask more questions than it answers...

...but hey, we got LOTS of questions...

[Cocoa]

6. maybe Kean should be held accountable

what kind of statement is "``There are a number of steps along the way, that if they had occurred differently, this event wouldn't have occurred,'' he said."

wtf? Is that what the report is going to conclude? If things had happened differently, then things would have happened differently? Our tax money is going to this worthless crap?

:mad:

[Whoa_Nelly]

38. Kean's statement almost as ridiculous and mystifying

as Rummy's "known unknowns".

"Reports that say something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know," Rumsfeld told a news briefing. "We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

[54anickel]

8. Thanks. I won't bother staying up to watch now.

[Malva Zebrina]

9. what would have been expected from a Republican anyhow?

I expected this. He will be bought and paid for also. Whatever caused him to be so flip as to suggest that the Bush administration was in any way complicit in allowing 9-11 to happen or was negligent was pure fantasy--the people of American have no one who will defend them from the tyranny of this administration. I have no doubt that Kean was threatened in some way--either he or his family was threatened. He is now backtracking and running scared like the rest of them.

[tlcandie]

24. I'm sure he's fighting his conscious with survival ....

which would explain the flip flop here possibly. I think that the widows tear him anew one and he emphathises with them, but then he gets reminded or warned of his place in this world and comes back to the reality of his new world

[glitch]

10. And how would he know? They're stonewalling him

so what is he basing these exonerating statements on? waw.

[demgrrrll]

11. "Not completed"seems to be the meme. McClellan used that

phrase and Kean is using the same phrase to backtrack.
If I am not mistaken Kean's original comments had more
of a "completed" feel.

[Dover]

21. Yes, that explains all of McClellan's statements at the news conference

...especially the line he kept repeating about the WH's different perspective on the findings. At that very moment the Bush mafia was probably pulling out Kean's fingernails to change HIS perspective for later release.

It is interesting that they didn't actually deny Kean's allegations during that press conference.

[revcarol]

12. Now he can get that job with Halliburton,

Carlyle, or be a favored lobbyist making millions bilking the taxpayer for unwanted, unneeded stuff or services.He's paid his dues.

[cthrumatrix]

14. What happened to "losing friends over this"....more BS?

[prisonerseven]

15. Darn! I really thought we had bush by the small ones.

Do we have anyone on the board to discredit Kean and get bush back on the front burner? We are too close to give up now.

[lfairban]

20. How about this:

New Chairman of 9/11 Commission
had business ties with Osama's Brother in Law

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO212A.htm

[KalicoKitty]

22. Link

The "l" was left off your link, so it did not work. Here is the correct link:


http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO212A.html

[kskiska]

16. Remember DiIulio?

"What you've got is everything—and I mean everything—being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

Excerpts from Ron Suskind's Esquire interview:
http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2002/021202_mfe_rove.html

Then he did a 180 and said he misspoke. "Never mind."

[July]

40. Thank you!

I have asked here about 4 or 5 times what has happened to DiIulio. Try to Google him and find anything after the Mayberry Machiavellis flap disappeared from the news. What the hell happened to him?

[Triana]

18. Bu$h Thugs Threaten Kean, Kean Backtracks on 9-11 Statements at 1000 MPH..

GEE, Wonder WHAT Happened? Did Karl Rove threaten Kean, threaten his family, suggest that perhaps Kean might like to find some ANTHRAX in his mail? Was Kean visited by some of Bu$h's White House 'security' thugs? Did Unca Dicky ream Kean out for telling the truth? We all know TRUTH is not allowed in the Bush administration. Kean is now backtracking at 1000 miles per hour!! Goooood grief! And the "liberal" media decided to pre-empt a supposed NIGHTLINE investigative report covering Kean's 9-11 findings with MICHAEL JACKSON instead.

D E S P I C A B L E!

[WheresWaldo]

19. Premature optimism about Kean

POSTED IN LATTER POSTS OF ORIGINAL "9/11 Chair: Attack was preventable" thread

New Chairman of 9/11 Commission had business ties with Osama's Brother in Law
by Michel Chossudovsky
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO212A.html

AND

by Nicholas Stein
Fortune Magazine
January 22, 2003
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/print/0,15935,410237,00.html


In December, President Bush named Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, chairman of an independent commission examining the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But FORTUNE has learned that Kean appears to have a bizarre link to the very terror network he's investigating--al Qaeda.

Here's how the dots connect: Kean is a director of petroleum giant Amerada Hess, which in 1998 formed a joint venture--known as Delta Hess--with Delta Oil, a Saudi Arabian company, to develop oil fields in Azerbaijan. One of Delta's backers is Khalid bin Mahfouz, a shadowy Saudi patriarch married to one of Osama bin Laden's sisters. Mahfouz, who is suspected of funding charities linked to al Qaeda, is even named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by families of Sept. 11 victims. True, Hess is hardly the only company to cross paths with Mahfouz: He has shown up in dealings with, among others, ultra-secretive investment firm Carlyle Group and BCCI, the lender toppled by fraud in 1992.

Kean, who was unavailable for comment, may not have been aware of the Mahfouz connection. But Hess spokesman Carl Tursi did reveal another interesting coincidence: Three weeks before Kean's appointment, Hess severed its ties with Delta.

---

[prisonerseven]

23. At least Dan Rather tried. I still insist Rather is on our side

We have to give him credit for trying to break something open.

[young_at_heart]

25. Dan and CBS deserve a lot of credit

I'm reminded of Edward R. Murrow......when journalists didn't have to be actors or spokespeople for big business, which nowadays means our federal government.

[Catherine Vincent]

26. Did you guys hear this Kean guy on Nightline?

I knew it was too good to be true! Fucking republican lackey!

[lucky777]

27. He's being a pussy on Nightline now

I was excited by this, but now I can see that he is a real pussy, hedging his comments, refusing to say that people should be fired, refusing to blame anyone in Bush admin. Now he refuses to say that agencies (NORAD, CIA, WH) were "stonewalling". What a fucking pussy. Refusing to say whether he'll call Bush (or Clinton). The fix is in on this, I think, we're fucked. It will be up to the families to handle this....

Bottom line: can't trust these republicans.

[milkyway]

28. It's those damn $8/hr airport security workers that are to blame...

along with Bill Clinton, of course. This whitewash will make the Warren Commission blush. Despite host Chris Bury practically begging Kean to hold the upper levels of the Bush White House accountable, Kean points the finger squarely at the lowest level workers he can find (airport security guards, immigration officials at the borders, low-level FBI people, etc.).*

The purpose of this commission is to convince the public that a massive, definitive investigation has found that, yeah, mistakes were made, and now they will be fixed. About the biggest thing that will happen will probably be that hapless George Tenet will mercifully lose his job.

The spineless Kean had to make sure that every time the Bush misadministration was mentioned, that Clinton was dragged into it also. Hell, why go back only to Clinton? If you really want the truth, let's investigate the Reagan and Bush sr. adminstrations when they first starting arming and training Osama. The WTC was first attacked 38 days after Clinton took office. The only difference between that and the 9/11 is that the terrorists failed in the first attack in 1993. They tried to knock down the towers by exploding a bomb at its base, but they fucked up. If they hadn't, 50,000 people would have been killed. Clinton certainly could not be held accountable for this intelligence failure only 38 days into his Presidency, so we must hold Bush sr. accountable for that. Looking at the Presidencies of Reagan, Bush sr, Clinton, and jr., only one of them ever did anything to try to prevent terrorists from attacking us before 9/11--Bill Clinton. He even tried to kill bin Laden a couple of times.

*Chris Bury rules! As I'm typing the first paragraph, he just ripped the shit out of Kean after the interview was over. He said the commission wasn't created to ferret out airport security workers who messed up, but instead to hold Cabinet level officials accountable if there were massive failures.

[IndianaGreen]

29. Wes Clark said it best...

when he accused Bush of sitting on his ass for 9 months before 9/11, disregarding all the warnings about Al-Qaeda, and putting his time and energy on Star Wars. Clark also lambasted Bush for going after Saddam rather than the real enemy, Osama bin Laden.

[young_at_heart]

37. Every point is BIG..........but ignored by the liberal media

That damn liberal media won't give poor Bush a break!

[Fleshdancer]

30. Someone got to Kean

There's no other explaination for the huge discrepency between last night's interview with CBS and tonight on Nightline.

Anyone fluent in body language? What does it mean when someone's eyes looks down and to the left before answering most questions???

[TeeYiYi]

32. re: "what does it mean . . .

when someone's eyes looks down and to the left before answering most questions???"

Answer: It means that they're trying to read from the teleprompter kindly placed to their left by Karl Rove while keeping their face toward the camera.

TYY :7

[Bozvotros]

34. Accessing feelings and sensations

According to Neurolinguistic programming, looking down to the right means the person is getting in touch with feelings and sensations. In this case it could mean that as Kean is answering and speaking he is remembering the visceral fear that knifed through him when he got his "memory enhancing" phone call after his first disclosures.

[leftchick]

35. I have read it means the person is lying......

condiliar does that EVERY time she is on tv....

[Sugarbleus]

31. I'm watching it now....

The moderator/host seems concerned enough. There may still be hope for this to explode a little later on.

[HuckleB]

36. Gutless in America...

Kean's performance is disheartening.

[Gin]

39. I stayed u to watch and was dissappointed...the Moderator tried to pin

him down..but he towed the bullshit white house line.

Will anyone ever have the courage to tell the truth?

[Minstrel Boy]

41. Who's who and what's what on the 9/11 commission

We shouldn't have expected better from Thomas Kean.

New Chairman of 9/11 Commission had business ties with Osama's Brother in Law
by Michel Chossudovsky, Dec 27, 2002

Unknown to most, UNOCAL's partner in the Cent-Gas trans-Afghan pipeline consortium, the Saudi Company Delta Oil is owned by the bin Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi clans which allegedly have ties to bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.

...

Bin Mahfouz is suspected to have funnelled millions of dollars to the Al Qaeda network.

Now, "by sheer coincidence", former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean, the man chosen by President Bush to lead the 9/11 commission also has business ties with bin Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi.

Thomas Kean is a director (and shareholder) of Amerada Hess Corporation , which is involved in the Hess-Delta joint venture with Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia (owned by the bin Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi clans).
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO212A.html

But Kean's not the only one compromised. Vice-Chair Lee Hamilton has a history of covering-up for the Bush family. He led a congressional inquiry into the "October Surprise" of Bush Sr, and found no evidence of wrong doing (http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile10.html).

And how about these other commissioners:

Jamie Gorlick: joined the legal defense team of Clark Clifford and Robert Altman, the two top officers of First American Bank, which had been taken over by the corrupt BCCI, money launderer for Intelligence agencies, criminals and terrorists.

Richard Ben-Vaniste: represented Barry Seal, the drug-running Iran/Contra CIA asset. Told The Wall Street Journal: "I did my part by launching him (Seal) into the arms of Vice President Bush who embraced him as an undercover operative."

Fred Fielding: deputy counsel under John Dean in the Nixon WH. Helped clean out Howard Hunt's safe and dispose of evidence. Served on the Bush* transition team.

Jim Thompson: longtime Illinois Governor and currently chairman of the Chicago-based law firm Winston and Strawn. Subject of allegations of complicity in CIA drug smuggling.

Slade Gorton: Appointed by Trent Lott to Senate Intelligence Committee. Told the Seattle Times two days after 9/11, that there was nothing Intelligence agencies could have done to prevent the attacks, and "I doubt we can expect to get too much inside information no matter what we do."

There was one commissioner who was likely to hold the administration to account: Max Cleland ("The 9-11 Commission deal with the White House on 9-11 documents is a sham, it's disgusting, America is being cheated." - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/11/13/national1458EST0674.DTL). A few weeks ago, as we know, Cleland left the commission. Bush had cause to find him another appointment.