Even as White House political aides plot a 2004 campaign plan designed to capitalize on the emotions and issues raised by the September 11 terror attacks, administration officials are waging a behind-the-scenes battle to restrict public disclosure of key events relating to the attacks. ... By refusing to declassify many of its most significant conclusions, the administration has essentially thwarted congressional plans to release the report by the end of this month, congressional and administration sources tell NEWSWEEK. In some cases, these sources say, the administration has even sought to reclassify some material that was already discussed in public testimonya move one Senate staffer described as ludicrous. The administrations stand has infuriated the two members of Congress who oversaw the reportDemocratic Sen. Bob Graham and Republican Rep. Porter Goss. ... In Grahams view, the Bush administration isnt protecting legitimate issues of national security but information that could be a political embarrassment, the aide said. Graham, who last year served as Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, recently told NEWSWEEK: There has been a cover-up of this." ... ... because the document relied so heavily on secret material, the administration working group, overseen by CIA director George Tenet, had to first scrub the document and determine which portions could be declassified. More than two months later, the working group came back with its decisionsand some members were flabbergasted. Entire portions remained classified. Some of the reportincluding some dealing with matters that had been extensively aired in public, such as the now famous FBI Phoenix memo of July 2001 reporting that Middle Eastern nationals might be enrolling in U.S. flight schoolswere reclassified. ... One portion deals extensively with the stream of U.S. intelligence-agency reports in the summer of 2001 suggesting that Al Qaeda was planning an upcoming attack against the United Statesand implicitly raises questions about how Bush and his top aides responded. One such CIA briefing, in July 2001, was particularly chilling and prophetic. It predicted that Osama bin Laden was about to launch a terrorist strike in the coming weeks, the congressional investigators found. The intelligence briefing went on to say: The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning. The substance of that intelligence report was first disclosed at a public hearing last September by staff director Hill. But at the last minute, Hill was blocked from saying precisely who within the Bush White House got the briefing when CIA director Tenet classified the names of the recipients. (One source says the recipients of the briefing included Bush himself.) As a result, Hill was only able to say the briefing was given to senior government officials. ... Hopefully the truth will find its way into the light about 9/11 someday. Bush's administration is doing everything in their power to keep the lid on the truth. It wouldn't help his re-election bid if the public knew he sat on his ass and let it happen. If you live in America, if you call this your home, wouldn't you like to know everything possible about 9/11? I still want to know why the Air Force was told to stand down that day. I still want to know more about those fishy stock put options and how they were traced back to A.B. Brown. What is the classified information linking the Israeli spy ring in America to 9/11? Lots of unanswered questions. Keep the issues alive. |