Government Warned 9/11 Commission ‘Not To Cross The Line’
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Documents recently obtained by the ACLU show that the government warned the 9/11 Commission against getting to the bottom of the September 11 terror attacks in a letter signed by Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and CIA Director George J. Tenet.
In a letter dated January 6, 2004, the Commission was refused permission to question terrorist detainees, with inquiry leaders Hamilton and Kean being told there was “A line that the Commission should not cross,” in the course of its investigation.
A PDF of the letter (page 26) can be read here.
The government urged the Commission, “Not to further pursue the proposed request to participate in the questioning of detainees,” according to the letter, citing the need to “Safeguard the national security, including protection of Americans from future terrorist attacks.”
The warning was just one example of how the Bush administration fiercely struggled to prevent the 9/11 Commission from conducting a deeper probe into the attacks. Bush and Cheney refused to appear before the Commission separately and both refused to testify under oath, instead meeting with panel members informally and in private, with no recordings of the meeting allowed.
“It appears that David Addington took the lead on refusing the 9/11 Commission’s request,” writes the FireDogLake blog. “It appears Addington got the draft of the letter from 9/11 Commission–which was addressed to Rummy and George Tenet. Tenet and Addington clearly had a conversation about how to respond. But it seems that Addington drafted the response, got Condi, Andy Card, and Alberto Gonzales to review it, and then sent it to Tenet (and, presumably, Rummy) to okay and sign the letter.”
As FireDogLake rightly points out, this was part of an attempt to cover-up the systematic torture of detainees which did not fully come to light until the Abu Ghraib scandal was exposed in April 2004.
However, the refusal to allow access to detainees was also undoubtedly so that the Commission members couldn’t later blow the whistle on the fact that the men were nothing more than patsies and goat herders who had nothing whatsoever to do with the 9/11 attacks.
As we have constantly emphasized in the face of establishment media spin that has demonized the mere act of questioning the official 9/11 story, the majority of the 9/11 Commission members themselves have all gone on record to publicly slam the official story as untrue.
The senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission – John Farmer – said that the government agreed not to tell the truth about 9/11, echoing the assertions of fellow 9/11 Commission members who concluded that the Pentagon was engaged in deliberate deception about their response to the attack.
Senator Max Cleland, who resigned from the 9/11 Commission after calling it a “national scandal”, stated in a 2003 PBS interview,
“I’m saying that’s deliberate. I am saying that the delay in relating this information to the American public out of a hearing… series of hearings, that several members of Congress knew eight or ten months ago, including Bob Graham and others, that was deliberately slow walked… the 9/11 Commission was deliberately slow walked, because the Administration’s policy was, and its priority was, we’re gonna take Saddam Hussein out.”
Cleland, speaking with Democracy Now, said,
“One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up”.
In 2006 the Washington Post reported that several members of the 9/11 Commission suspected deception on part of the Pentagon. As reported,
“Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon’s initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.”
9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerry also has unanswered questions. As reported by Salon, he believes that there are legitimate reasons to believe an alternative version to the official story.
“There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version,” Kerry said. The commission had limited time and limited resources to pursue its investigation, and its access to key documents and witnesses was fettered by the administration.
Commissioner Tim Roemer, speaking to CNN, stated that Commission members were considering a criminal probe of false statements. As quoted,
“We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting,” Roemer told CNN. “We were not sure of the intent, whether it was to deceive the commission or merely part of the fumbling bureaucracy.”
Despite the fact that the majority of 9/11 Commission members have openly attacked the official story, the corporate media still frames any suspicion surrounding 9/11 as baseless conspiracy fodder at best, and at worst – terrorist and extremist propaganda.
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Documents recently obtained by the ACLU show that the government warned the 9/11 Commission against getting to the bottom of the September 11 terror attacks in a letter signed by Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and CIA Director George J. Tenet.
In a letter dated January 6, 2004, the Commission was refused permission to question terrorist detainees, with inquiry leaders Hamilton and Kean being told there was “A line that the Commission should not cross,” in the course of its investigation.
A PDF of the letter (page 26) can be read here.
The government urged the Commission, “Not to further pursue the proposed request to participate in the questioning of detainees,” according to the letter, citing the need to “Safeguard the national security, including protection of Americans from future terrorist attacks.”
The warning was just one example of how the Bush administration fiercely struggled to prevent the 9/11 Commission from conducting a deeper probe into the attacks. Bush and Cheney refused to appear before the Commission separately and both refused to testify under oath, instead meeting with panel members informally and in private, with no recordings of the meeting allowed.
“It appears that David Addington took the lead on refusing the 9/11 Commission’s request,” writes the FireDogLake blog. “It appears Addington got the draft of the letter from 9/11 Commission–which was addressed to Rummy and George Tenet. Tenet and Addington clearly had a conversation about how to respond. But it seems that Addington drafted the response, got Condi, Andy Card, and Alberto Gonzales to review it, and then sent it to Tenet (and, presumably, Rummy) to okay and sign the letter.”
As FireDogLake rightly points out, this was part of an attempt to cover-up the systematic torture of detainees which did not fully come to light until the Abu Ghraib scandal was exposed in April 2004.
However, the refusal to allow access to detainees was also undoubtedly so that the Commission members couldn’t later blow the whistle on the fact that the men were nothing more than patsies and goat herders who had nothing whatsoever to do with the 9/11 attacks.
As we have constantly emphasized in the face of establishment media spin that has demonized the mere act of questioning the official 9/11 story, the majority of the 9/11 Commission members themselves have all gone on record to publicly slam the official story as untrue.
The senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission – John Farmer – said that the government agreed not to tell the truth about 9/11, echoing the assertions of fellow 9/11 Commission members who concluded that the Pentagon was engaged in deliberate deception about their response to the attack.
Senator Max Cleland, who resigned from the 9/11 Commission after calling it a “national scandal”, stated in a 2003 PBS interview,
“I’m saying that’s deliberate. I am saying that the delay in relating this information to the American public out of a hearing… series of hearings, that several members of Congress knew eight or ten months ago, including Bob Graham and others, that was deliberately slow walked… the 9/11 Commission was deliberately slow walked, because the Administration’s policy was, and its priority was, we’re gonna take Saddam Hussein out.”
Cleland, speaking with Democracy Now, said,
“One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up”.
In 2006 the Washington Post reported that several members of the 9/11 Commission suspected deception on part of the Pentagon. As reported,
“Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon’s initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.”
9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerry also has unanswered questions. As reported by Salon, he believes that there are legitimate reasons to believe an alternative version to the official story.
“There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version,” Kerry said. The commission had limited time and limited resources to pursue its investigation, and its access to key documents and witnesses was fettered by the administration.
Commissioner Tim Roemer, speaking to CNN, stated that Commission members were considering a criminal probe of false statements. As quoted,
“We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting,” Roemer told CNN. “We were not sure of the intent, whether it was to deceive the commission or merely part of the fumbling bureaucracy.”
Despite the fact that the majority of 9/11 Commission members have openly attacked the official story, the corporate media still frames any suspicion surrounding 9/11 as baseless conspiracy fodder at best, and at worst – terrorist and extremist propaganda.
In this motivating interview I talk to organiser, activist and philanthropist Betsy Metz. We ask Betsy about the highly successful conference she organised and facilitated this month. The March 2010 
