Chair and Vice-Chair of 9/11 Commission accuse government officials of obstruction of justice...

[AntiFascist]

In an editorial in today's New York Times, Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton (chairman and vice chairman respectively of the 9/11 commission) state:

In a lunch meeting on Dec. 23, 2003, George Tenet, the C.I.A. director, told us point blank that we would have no such access. During the meeting, we emphasized to him that the C.I.A. should provide any documents responsive to our requests, even if the commission had not specifically asked for them. Mr. Tenet replied by alluding to several documents he thought would be helpful to us, but neither he, nor anyone else in the meeting, mentioned videotapes.

A meeting on Jan. 21, 2004, with Mr. Tenet, the White House counsel, the secretary of defense and a representative from the Justice Department also resulted in the denial of commission access to the detainees. Once again, videotapes were not mentioned.

As a result of this January meeting, the C.I.A. agreed to pose some of our questions to detainees and report back to us. The commission concluded this was all the administration could give us. But the commission never felt that its earlier questions had been satisfactorily answered. So the public would be aware of our concerns, we highlighted our caveats on page 146 in the commission report.

As a legal matter, it is not up to us to examine the C.I.A.’s failure to disclose the existence of these tapes. That is for others. What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction.

[malaise]

1. K & R

Truth will out.

[AntiFascist]

2. Thanks...

I have a real problem with this. If it was simply a matter of not wanting to show the public that the CIA was using questionable methods, couldn't they have simply marked the tape 'classified' before showing it to the commission? There seems to be more to this.

[rockybelt]

30. You KNOW there is more to this

we all KNOW that this corrupt government tortures people. We know a lot of what they have done and are doing. Maybe this is a smoke screen to hide something else they are doing now. Not like they haven't done that before. Or maybe the audio of the tape is what was so incriminating. We won't know until the copies come out of hiding. SOMEBODY has them.

[Voice for Peace]

36. I read one article suggesting that the tape may have implicated someone in a high place

Then the article vanished and I've read nothing more about that theory.

[rockybelt]

40. It is more than a theory

When the truth comes out I believe it will involve the House of Saudi, the White House and the Israelis. This was an orchastrated attack upon the U.S. and I believe that names of people involved in orchestrating the attack were on the tapes. I believe that the evidence will show that the U.S. was involved in the attack for very specific reasons. What reasons? Ask george Tenet and george Bush and Dick Cheney. Ask Dick Cheney about BAE.

[JohnyCanuck]

3. kick n/t

[Rageneau]

4. Well, of COURSE there was obstruction -- that's what Lee Hamilton was there to guarantee!

Any investigation run by Lee Hamilton is automatically an investigation with no interest in finding the truth.

Hamilton runs whitewashes, not inquiries.

This complaining after-the-fact about being duped is just a whitewash of his own previous malfeasance.

[formercia]

5. CYA

The Commissioner doth protest too much, methinks.

[lostnfound]

6. A whitewash and convenient pointing finger at Tenet and CIA

rather than the Bushites

[Mr Rabble]

7. Yup, by the Zelikow commission folks...

What a joke.

Of course Im sure that this will get plenty of play on the blogs just as intended...

[lostnfound]

9. and to the extent that it blips on the corporate media

the focus will all be about why did TENET insist on keeping it secret, with nary a word about Bush giving him a medal of freedom or whatever that reward for keeping his mouth shut was.

[AntiFascist]

22. It should also be pointed out...

that the White House didn't want this investigation until it was pressured.

Wouldn't it be great if Bush started pointing the finger at Cheney?

[OzarkDem]

10. Agree, now what do they plan to do about it

other than whine and complain? How badly do they want to protect the US Constitution? Probably not bad enough, especially if it means someone might say something bad about them in the news media.

[formercia]

16. They're pulling a Specter

Bitch and moan but at the end of the day, Junior gets his way.

[nashville_brook]

28. didn't they try to put Kissinger in the driver's seat originally?

[leveymg]

8. Ironic - 9/11 lies created Bush-Cheney, and a 9/11 lie may finally destroy it.

[SpiralHawk]

11. More republicon cover up of republicon lies and incompetence

What a pack of amoral heyenas the republicons arem

[HamdenRice]

12. May have been to prevent disclosure of Saudi & Pakistani complicity in attacks

It is interesting that this analysis comes from anti-JKF conspiracist Gerald Posner.

His theory is that the CIA interrogation tapes of Abu Zubaydah demonstrated that Saudi and Pakistani government officials were involved in the 9/11 attacks.

During the interrogation, the Americans created a false flag illusion, pretending to turn Abu Zubaydah over to Saudi interrogators. The "Saudis" however, were fakes; they were Americans. The CIA believed that Abu Zubaydah would fear being tortured or killed by Saudi intelligence.

Instead, Zubaydah appeared relieved and provided the fake interrogators with phone numbers of high Saudi officials expecting them to help him out:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-posner/the-cias-destroyed-inter_b_75850.html

Also, disclosed was how U.S. intelligence established a so-called "fake flag" operation, in which the wounded Zubaydah was transferred to Afghanistan under the ruse that he had actually been turned over to the Saudis. The Saudis had him on a wanted list, and the Americans believed that Zubaydah, fearful of torture and death at the hands of the Saudis, would start talking when confronted by U.S. agents playing the role of Saudi intelligence officers.

Instead, when confronted by his "Saudi" interrogators, Zubaydah showed no fear. Instead, according to the two U.S. intelligence sources that provided me the details, he seemed relieved. The man who had been reluctant to even confirm his identity to his U.S. captors, suddenly talked animatedly. He was happy to see them, he said, because he feared the Americans would kill him. He then asked his interrogators to call a senior member of the Saudi royal family. And Zubaydah provided a private home number and a cell phone number from memory. "He will tell you what to do," Zubaydah assured them

That man was Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, one of King Fahd's nephews, and the chairman of the largest Saudi publishing empire. Later, American investigators would determine that Prince Ahmed had been in the U.S. on 9/11.

...

... Several hours after he first fingered Prince Ahmed, his captors challenged the information, and said that since he had disparaged the Saudi royal family, he would be executed. It was at that point that some of the secrets of 9/11 came pouring out. In a short monologue, that one investigator told me was the "Rosetta Stone" of 9/11, Zubaydah laid out details of how he and the al Qaeda hierarchy had been supported at high levels inside the Saudi and Pakistan governments.

He named two other Saudi princes, and also the chief of Pakistan's air force, as his major contacts. Moreover, he stunned his interrogators, by charging that two of the men, the King's nephew, and the Pakistani Air Force chief, knew a major terror operation was planned for America on 9/11.

<end quote>

Well, they certainly don't want the public to get its hands on the "Rosetta Stone" of 9/11.

[AntiFascist]

23. This sounds exactly like what is being covered up...

as I understand, there is similar material in the redacted portions of the 9/11 commission report.

[EVDebs]

33. Sen Bob Graham's book long ago and the Jersey girls info was enough for me early on

Plus the ISI guy who was meeting with Graham on 9-11.

[Blarch]

13. LOL

Cheney could personally shoot Kean in his face, and there would still be no action taken. Congress has died a horrible death, accountability is history.

[spanone]

14. K&R

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

15. Take a look at the CIA's lengthy history ...

...of criminality and you'll find obstruction to be among the least serious of their past offenses:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=CIACoupsofTerrorism

[AntiFascist]

26. Yes, I happen to believe that factions of the CIA...

once pulled off a coup d'etat; however, take a look at this thread to get an idea of what may be possible through mere obstruction:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2573609&mesg_id=2574079

[rodeodance]

17. so, get some lawyers and sue the pants of them--all of them. the pocket book speaks.

[elizfeelinggreat]

18. WTH?

What took them so long?

Their silence was complicity.

[HamdenRice]

19. They've said this many times before

but in more off the cuff statements. Recently, it was revealed that the CIA destroyed tapes of interrogations of al Qaeda operatives. The 9/11 Commission had specifically asked for such evidence but were led to believe, at the time the Commission was gathering evidence, that they did not exist.

So these recent revelations about the destruction of tapes that were supposed never to have existed in the first place have forced them to distance themselves even more from the "cooperation" they received from the CIA, to the point that throughout December they were saying that the CIA obstructed the 9/11 Commission investigation.

Today, they put that charge in an editorial in the NY Times and were explicit in using the word "obstruction."

[elizfeelinggreat]

20. but

Didn't Sy Hersh say at the time that he had seen the tapes?

I always find it hard to believe that someone like me browsing the internet can find more facts than the experts, actually I don't believe it.

[HamdenRice]

21. "can find more facts than the experts"

Yup, most "journalists" are not trying to get at the truth, but to construct a narrative that suits their bosses. There's a great thread today on DU about John Hockenberry's experiences as an NBC News producer, and how corporate suits routinely censored the news.

As for Sy Hersh, the tapes he was referring to were, I believe, Abu Ghraib torture tapes, not CIA al Qaeda interrogation tapes.

But I'm still wondering -- what the f**k happened to the Abu Ghraib tapes that were supposed to be released to the public?

[AntiFascist]

24. It seems like something should click now that this is a formal statement -

Federal officials are obstructing justice being sought against those who are pulling the strings for al Qaeda. This was also going on before 9/11. If this isn't treasonous, nothing is.

[Kurovski]

25. Kick. (nt)

[acmavm]

27. The 911 Commission was a joke. With or without tapes, it was a joke.

A BAD joke.

[HooptieWagon]

29. 9/11 Commission calling someone out on OoJ???

Oh, the hypocrisy of it all....

[Little Star]

31. What was the date of the Times article? Thanks.

[AntiFascist]

34. It was in today's NY Times (Jan 2)...

I get the online version around midnight, and stayed up late.

[EVDebs]

32. Quick, before this is put into the Dungeon ! Comment away before it's too late nt

[AntiFascist]

35. This thread will not willingly go into that dark night (of the dungeon) n/t

[Rex]

37. Tired of looking like idiots? After all these years?

No more whitewashing? Series?

[Sadie5]

38. What I see

is Lee Hamilton trying to somehow cover his sorry ass.

[Major Hogwash]

39. OBSTRUCTION . . OF . . JUSTICE!! K&R

We must prosecute, the United States is a country of laws, not of men!

All men are equal under the law!

We must enforce the law!