What's Bush hiding about 9/11?

Great Debates
1

So, G. W. Bush is opposed to the creation of a special commission to investigate the terror warnings of 9/11, while Dick Cheney decided to come out of his undisclosed location to flame anyone who dares to question the Administration’s handling of the same.

Now, I’m certainly no fan of the Dubya administration, but even I wouldn’t suggest anything as kooky as saying Bush knew about the terrorist attacks and allowed them to happen. Even so, I do have to wonder about the blatant foot-dragging that’s going on here; given the new gravity of terrorism against the United States, shouldn’t we have more insight into the defects of the intelligence system, not less? And isn’t there anyone in the White House who’s worried that these acts will make the Administration look like they’re trying to cover up something (whether or not there is anything to cover up at all)?

Thoughts and comments, folks?

2

The only non-scandalous thing I can think of offhand that would account for this behavior is a fear that an investigation would (purposefully or not) reveal exploitable weaknesses in our intellligence community or endanger humint assets. But, yeesh, is the White House getting PR advice from PETA or Gary Condit or something? Come clean early and often, fellas, and things will go right for you more often than not.

3

What evidence is there that the Bushies are foot-dragging. Their position appears to be that there already are two committees investigating the intelligence failures before 9/11 - the House and Senate Intelligence Committees - and, because both have long experience handling confidential or secret data, they are best equipped to conduct the information without compromising intelligence sources and the like.

While there may be a cover-up going on, on its face, the Bushies’ position is reasonable. (and this from someone who believes the latest spate of warnings is indeed intended to divert attention from the “what did they know, and when did they know it?” speculations now going on.)

Sua

4

I doubt whether GWB is “hiding” any smoking guns that will hurt him seriously in the public’s mind. I think he’s more afraid that an investigation will turn into a public circus, in which Democrats will play the game of “See, he knew what was coming, and he didn’t stop it!”

My sense is, the real problem the Feds faced before 9/11 is the same dilemma they face now: they have WAY too much information, and no way to handle it or process it effectively. They have a million tips and leads and clues, and don’t have the time, manpower or omniscience to determine which are valuable and which are dead ends.

SINCE 9/11, it seems that every week, the Administration is issuing vague, nebulous warnings that scare us, but don’t tell us anything useful. I think this represents an OVERREACTION to 9/11, when the Feds had all kinds of vague, nebulous information, but sat on it because they didn’t know specifically what it meant. Any warnings they might have aired prior to 9/11 would probably have been equally “helpful.”

I fully support the idea of an investigatory committee, because the people have a right to know how well or how badly our government handled investigations of terrorist cells, and what they did with the information they received. But it’s all too clear that many Democrats are viewing this as a Watergate-style affair (hence, phrases like “what did the President know and when did he know it?”). Small wonder GWB has no interest in such nonsense.

But there’s no reason he couldn’t appoint something like the Tower Commission, a bipartisan group of respected officials, who’d be able to tell us where law enforcement and counterintelligence broke down. For the sake of argument, GWB could appoint… say, John McCain, Jimmy Carter, Rudy Giuliani, Sam Nunn and Norman Schwarzkopf, and they could give us all the facts. Most important: did the Feds have clear warnings of specific attacks aimed at specific targets, or did they just have hundreds of memos regarding possible threats to a host of locations?

5

It’s a no-win situation for the administration. If they didn’t see the warning signs, they’re incompetent, and if they did see them but chose not to act, they’re evil. They could try to mollify the pubic with a few minor disclosures, but the Democrats can gain (or feel that they can gain) political points by always demanding more. To be fair, if Gore was in office the Republicans would be doing exactly the same.

As a result, the administration may as well keep quiet until a few years have passed and books can be written about the subject with material gleaned from the Freedom of Information Act or through the memoirs of retiring officials.

Wjy is it so crucial to know the complete story now, I wonder? The average citizen isn’t going to be in a better position to fight terorrism; all it can do is undermine ongoing intelligence efforts. Wait until late 2004, at which point GWB will either have been reelected or voted out and in either case, he’ll have less to lose politically.

6

We have a right and a need to know what happened, and why. A good leader would respect that, and would appeal to the best in us by helping us share in the knowledge and responsibility, rather than engage in this evasive, paternalistic apparent attempt at ass-covering.

But it’s only 3000 lives and billions of dollars (so far) we’re referring to. Now, if Bush had been suspected of getting a blowjob, that would be serious.

7

I was wishing for something like this to come out (or will come out) after the initial spate of “Bush knew about the danger before 9/11” reports popped up. Unfortunately, I didn’t give it a high chance of actually happening, and I haven’t been proven wrong yet. As it is, I think there’s a chance that the American public will grow more distrustful of the Administration if they don’t open up more soon, which would erode those high approval ratings Bush is currently getting.

And yeah, there’s definitely the fear that opening up more information would expose the administration to political retribution from the Democrats (and they’d have to be idiots not to take the opportunity). But then that begs the question of why the GOP wasn’t concerned during the Clinton witchhunts? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that the more they banged on Clinton, the worse it’d be when they finally retook the White House.

(Yeah, I know, it’s politics. Consider the above a rhetorical question if you must.)

8

Us uppity citizens don’t have a right to question our betters. :rolleyes:

It’s really a symptom of the same worldview that led Bush to be comfortable with stealing an election; because he believes the top job is his by right. Questioning him is by definition disloyal. The american people aren’t his bosses, they are his subjects. Anyone who doesn’t see it that was isn’t really an american.

I think he honestly can’t wrap his mind around the concept of Loyal Opposition. He simply doesn’t get that this is possible, and therefore opposition is automatically on the side of evil in his mind.

9

The evidence, you see as black
So, why not go totally whack
…It seems not to trouble you
…To blame it on W
So, let’s call it “Bush’s attack!”

10

Why doesn’t Congress hold investigations on why Clinton didn’t go after Bin Laden and other muslim terrorists?

After all, muslims tried to blow up the WTC early in Clintons first term. Did’nt he figure out in 8 years that muslim extremists wanted to harm America?

What did Clinton know? And when did he know it?

I demand a congressional investigation.

11

Sorry, that just put me over my ‘irony quotient’ for the day.

RE; OP My take is that as a general stance, Bush would rather not turn over documents etc. than do so. But, that’s not really an odd stance for anyone to take. Turning over documents so some other entity can go through them is never anyone’s idea of a fun day. (audit anyone?) I understand (as does he, I’m sure) that in gub’mint, one has to have oversite, disclosure etc. etc. etc.

frankly I think he’s got a better shot at claiming ‘national interests’ in this case than, oh, say the energy policy case, right?

And bottom line, if there were a dem in office I think they’d balk at a complete public hearing on ‘what do our intelligence sources know’ at this point, and the REps would be sounding the alarm too.

12

I don’t think that Bush really has a smoking gun to hide. He’s simply trying to avert the same sort of chronic investigations that the Republicans so eagerly thrust upon his predecessor. Thus, he complains about national security and patriotism, ignoring the fact that turnabout is fair play.

That being said, I’m disappointed in some of the Democrats. I won’t take responsibility for their actions – every group has a few flies in the ointment – but I’d prefer it for my party to not push this too hard. The upcoming elections are too important, and people are really not ready to turn on this administration just yet.

13

I think one of the reasons the administration doesn’t want an investigation is because it would bring more publicity to the fact that Ashcroft didn’t give a damn about counterterrorism (and it also begs the question of why Ashcroft was flying private jets out of fear of a terrorist attack back in June) and that Rumsfeld refused a request to have some money diverted from NMD to counterterrorism. The basic argument being amongst some pundits that the Bush team thought of bin Laden and all Qaeda as some Clinton thing.

But the stubbornness is only going to help one group of people: those who think Bush I & II are the kingpins of some global conspiracy.

14

Can I get a group rolleyes to go with this?

In any case, we’ve already got two committees dedicated to “finding out what went wrong” (I’ll tell you what went wrong… a bunch of whackos flew planes into buildings, that’s what went wrong). Why a third? If Bush knew there’s nothing to investigate - and, indeed, knew that there were already groups dedicated to confirming this - wouldn’t he naturally be opposed to yet another one?

Can you wrap your mind around the concept of “Moderate Criticism”?

15

Sure, hasn’t been anything else yet. The witch hunt is still waiting in the wings.

Not that you would know this if you get your news about what the Dems are saying from the conservative pundits.

16

Bush clearly knew that an attack was going to happen the morning that Pearl Harbor got bombed, and did nothing to stop it.

17

The Democrats are fishing around like mad for an issue they can grab onto to take them into the elections. Hillary Clinton showed up last week holding up a headline that said, “Bush Knew.” She’s been rightly savaged for that by people on both the right and the left.

The real fear here is that a commission right now would be a political football. In such an environment, secrets get disclosed. Let me ask you - if a piece of information came out that showed that Bush’s administration made a serious mistake in judgement, but ALSO which would compromise important intelligence assets if it were released, what odds would you give that that information would stay private?

I’ve got nothing against an investigation, carried out by the right people. I do have a problem with a full-blown set of congressional hearings, which will be damaging to the war effort, IMO.

18

Well, Sam, just who do you think the “right people” would be, then? Remember that the findings have to be credible with the people, not just true and complete. Where is that public credibility going to come from, if not from the people’s elected servants?

There’s a common theme, in this thread and in more-public media, automatically assuming that any investigation whatsoever would automatically be a partisan witchhunt. That’s sad, but that poison is also the legacy of 6 years of control of Congress by a party whose leaders, then and now, don’t know any other way, and apparently cannot conceive that those who they’re used to seeing as the enemy just might have different standards. There is a long and proud history of good work by earlier Congresses and Administrations that shows the assumption not to be true.

Congress is not the enemy, and neither is the White House. They all work for th’Amerk’npipple. They’re all part of how the government works, and they all have roles.

Good thing Bush is “a uniter, not a divider”, ain’t it? “They have not led - we will” indeed. I hate to think how much worse it would be otherwise.

19

I suppose it is possible. Could be that the Administration is utterly blameless. Could be that they aren’t really hiding anything at all. After all, the stuff we already know is embarrassing enough. What could be so much worse that they actually try to hide it? Some unseemly involvement of Big Oil with Foreign Policy? No, that story already broke…

After all, if the shoe was on the other foot in the mouth, the Pubbies would be temperate and moderate, you know, if it was Al “Plank O’ Wood” Gore who was doing such a dime-store imitation of Winston Churchill. I suppose its possible.

It may well be that no one in the Court of George II is going to develop a powerful desire to spend more time with ones family. That the nattering nabobs, the truculent troglodytes will be bitterly disappointed when an exhaustive investigation reveals only an Administration with unimpeachable integrity, stern moral clarity, and a firm grasp of geo-political and strategic realities.

That’s possible.

20

George Will posted a list that I thought was pretty good. It was made up of ex-politicians from both parties who already had top security clearances. I can’t remember who was on it, but Pat Moynihan was one of them. I think an ex-CIA director, etc. Swear them to secrecy, show them the data, and let them form a judgement.

The biggest problem with Congress in this regard is that it leaks like a sieve. If there is sensitive information among the evidence, then there’s a good chance it’ll be leaked by Republicans or Democrats, depending on who would get the advantage. The likelihood of that goes way up in an election year.