Hiding a CIA 9/11 Report that Names Names

I know Tung doesn't like Robert Scheer, but he seems to have an important scoop on how the Bush administration is preventing a CIA report on 9/11 that is very critical of the administration from being made public before the election:

It is shocking: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although the report by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed in June, it has not been made available to the congressional intelligence committees that mandated the study almost two years ago.

"It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward."

[snip]

According to the intelligence official, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, release of the report, which represents an exhaustive 17-month investigation by an 11-member team within the agency, has been "stalled." First by acting CIA Director John McLaughlin and now by Porter J. Goss, the former Republican House member (and chairman of the Intelligence Committee) who recently was appointed CIA chief by President Bush.

The official stressed that the report was more blunt and more specific than the earlier bipartisan reports produced by the Bush-appointed Sept. 11 commission and Congress.

"What all the other reports on 9/11 did not do is point the finger at individuals, and give the how and what of their responsibility. This report does that," said the intelligence official. "The report found very senior-level officials responsible."

An unconscionable act -- though certainly not a surprising one -- by the administration, given that Bush argues ad nauseum that he is the only candidate in the election who can keep the US safe from terrorists.

Comments

[Tung Yin]

Here's the problem: this story may or may not be true, but Scheer is such a partisan hack that I wouldn't trust a column of his based on anonymous sources. Presumably, the whole Rathergate fiasco has demonstrated that the more explosive the charge when based on secret sources, the more inherent credibility the reporter must have for the story to be believable.

[Kevin Jon Heller]

I obviously think more highly of Scheer than you, but I admit the story needs confirmation. Still, hiding the report would be in keeping with the general anti-democratic tendencies of the Bush administration, so I hope that Scheer's report will at least encourage the rest of the media to look into the issue.

[Kevin Jon Heller]

I also snipped the following from the block quote:

"When I asked about the report, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she and committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) sent a letter 14 days ago asking for it to be delivered. 'We believe that the CIA has been told not to distribute the report,' she said. 'We are very concerned.'"

The quote supports Scheer's story and is not an anonymous source.

[Dylan]

First, let's consider the source. The CIA is second only to the State department in hating Bush's foreign policy. It can not be taken for granted that this is unbiased.

Second, even if it's true, so what? No one took the idea of a 9/11 style attack seriously before it happened. Barring basic competence and cooperation between the same agencies that are now pissed off at the administration, nothing sensible could have been accomplished until it happened and woke up the entire nation.

The "no one accountable" stuff is perhaps a little more worrysome, but not much. The only failures peculiar to the CIA and FBI had existed for far longer than the Bush administration and its officials. While I think cleaning house is a good precedent, and keeps the new guys on their toes, there's also something to be said for having the experienced hands around. It's not a devastating critique, in any case.

[FN84]

Second, even if it's true, so what? No one took the idea of a 9/11 style attack seriously before it happened.

Thus, we should censor the report? How does that follow...

[paul a'barge]

Paying attention to anything Sheer says is positive definite diagnostic of dementia.

It's in the medical school books. Go look it up.