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9/11 Commission Exposes MythsDeadly Errors FoundPublicly, the White House now praises the bipartisan 9/11 Commission on Terrorist Attacks. Yet it stonewalled the commission for months and still refuses to follow its recommendations.
In fact, the commission’s final report details the deadly errors of the intelligence agencies and the White House regarding the Sept. 11 attacks. Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey who was chairman of the commission, has stated that the findings show that the Sept. 11 attacks that killed over 3,000 people and subsequently led the government to war in Afghanistan and Iraq were preventable. According to The New York Times, the commission report "shatters the myths" perpetuated by the Bush administration regarding the Sept. 11 attacks. Its findings are here contrasted to the White House's assertions. THE HIJACKERS COULD HAVE BEEN DETECTEDWhite House: "Each of the hijackers…came easily and lawfully from abroad. While here, the hijackers effectively operated without suspicion, triggering nothing that alerted law enforcement." Louis J. Freeh, former F.B.I. director, to Congress in October 2002. Commission: Up to 13 of the hijackers entered the U.S. with fraudulently altered passports. At least three of the terrorists appeared in American intelligence databases after Sept. 11. Ziad al-Jarrah, one of the pilots, violated his immigration status in 2001, which should have prohibited his re-entry into the country. Before Sept. 11, he re-entered the U.S. at least six more times. USING AIRPLANES AS TERRORIST WEAPONS WAS ANTICIPATEDWhite House: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center." Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser, May 2002. Commission: A September 1998 intelligence report, ''mentioned a possible plot to fly an explosives-laden aircraft into a U.S. city." That same year, an intelligence agency received information of a Libyan terrorist plot to crash a plane into the World Trade Center . Consequently, in April 2001 the North American Aerospace Defense Command planned a simulation of a terrorist crash into the Pentagon in April 2001. IRAQ HAD NO SIGNIFICANT TIES TO AL QAEDAWhite House: In October 2002 and repeatedly since then President Bush has declared that ''high-level contacts" between Iraq and Al Qaeda "go back a decade…. We've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases." Commission: While periodic contact between Al Qaeda and Iraqi officials occurred in the late 1990s, the commission found, "no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship.” They found no evidence of Iraqi involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. ATTACKS WERE PREDICTEDWhite House: The White House has consistently denied foreknowledge of Al Qaeda plans to attack the U.S. Last April, Condoleezza Rice testified before the commission that an intelligence report received by President Bush on Aug. 6, 2001 , a month before the attacks, “did not, in fact, warn of attacks inside the United States …. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information.'' Commission: The Aug. 6, 2001 briefing to President Bush was titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in U.S." It noted F.B.I. reports of "suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York." The commission also noted that the C.I.A. analysts who prepared the briefing emphasized that the threat was "both current and serious." Josina Morita works at the Applied Research Center , a race and policy organization, in Chicago, Ill. |
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