Dean's Remarks on Bush's 9/11 Prior Knowledge Stir Furor

posted by ewing2001 on Monday December 08, @10:32PM

GlobalFreePress and Nic Lewis (911Truth.com) dropped the Dean Issue also at the 9/11 Commission on Monday (report coming up soon)
Controversial Candidate now also endorsed by Al Gore ("...the President is anxious to keep the Congress from ...clear, strong and explicit warnings directly to him a few weeks before 9/11", 11/09)

Update: "It's just a theory that Howard Dean is a member of Al Quaeda..." (NY POST Opinion, Jay Ambrose 12/12)
Update: Dean repeated 9/11 remarks at Dem-Debate (12/09)

Dean's Remarks on 9/11 Stir Furor

LA Times -December 9

Howard Dean, whose penchant for off-the-cuff comments has proved both a strength and political liability, is facing a new flap over suggestions that President Bush had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Dean broached the possibility during a radio interview last week, but dismissed the notion in the same breath. A spokeswoman said Monday the former Vermont governor "obviously doesn't believe it's true."

But the fact Dean alluded to a "theory" that Bush had received prior intelligence from Saudi Arabian sources — which Dean called "most interesting" — was enough to incite Republicans

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. The national party chairman, Ed Gillespie, issued a blistering attack on Dean over the weekend, calling his comments "reckless and irresponsible."

During a Dec. 1 appearance on National Public Radio's "Diane Rehm Show," a nationally syndicated program, Dean was asked about a bipartisan federal commission that is investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. A caller urged Dean as president to "make sure there is a thorough investigation of 9/11."

After saying he would do so, Dean suggested Bush "is suppressing evidence" that could aid the Kean Commission in its reconstruction of events leading to the terrorist attacks.

Leaders of the commission — which is headed by former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean — have complained that the Bush administration has been too slow to provide access to key documents, and has intimidated witnesses by insisting that CIA and FBI observers attend sensitive interviews. The president has declined to turn over highly classified intelligence reports to the panel, despite threats of a subpoena.

"The most interesting theory that I've heard so far, which is nothing more than a theory … it can't be proved, is that [Bush] was warned ahead of time by the Saudis," Dean said in the interview. He did not elaborate.

He defended the comment Sunday when asked by Fox News about his remarks. "We don't know what happened," Dean said. " … I can't imagine the president of the United States doing that. But we don't know and it'd be a nice thing to know."

Dean continued: "What we do believe is that there was a lot of chatter that somehow was missed by the CIA and the FBI about this, and that for some reason we were unable to decide and get clear indications of what the attacks were going to be. Because the president won't give the information to the Kean Commission, we really don't know what the explanation is."

...Dean's verbal missteps have done little to slow his momentum. In fact, his support seems to grow more fervent whenever Dean faces criticism — from Republicans, Democrats or political pundits. Former Vice President Al Gore was expected to endorse Dean today.

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from the archive

Why no answers yet? 9/11 widows persist in posing questions Asbury Park Press -9/09/03

By ANDREA ALEXANDER STAFF WRITER

Two years after their husbands were killed in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, four Central Jersey women are still seeking answers to the questions they started asking immediately after Sept. 11, 2001.

They want to know why the government didn't do more to protect their husbands and other victims. They ask why the public was never warned about the threat of a terrorist attack in this country, and they are seeking an account of the failures of federal intelligence agencies.

Nine months since an independent commission started investigating the attacks, Kristen Breitweiser of Middletown, Patty Casazza of Colts Neck, and Lorie Van Auken and Mindy Kleinberg, both of East Brunswick, are frustrated that the inquiry faces roadblocks they believe are delaying answers. The women worked together last year to lobby the government to create the commission, have attended its hearings and vow to keep the pressure on for answers.

Some of their frustration is widely shared. Former Gov. Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the commission, said yesterday he also was surprised that the inquiry had a hard time acquiring information it sought from the federal government.

The lead attorney in a lawsuit brought by victims' families against the terrorists' alleged financial networks also has faced the same obstacles obtaining documents from the government for his case.

Why did 9/11 happen?

Two years since more than 3,000 people were killed in the attacks, including 158 from the Shore area, the quest for answers continues.

"I don't know why 9/11 happened," said Breitweiser, 32. "I do know my husband is dead.

"I would like to know why it happened, and I would like to know why it wasn't stopped," she said. "I would like to make sure it would never happen again."

Breitweiser's husband, Ron, was vice president at Fiduciary Trust Co. International on the 92nd floor of the World Trade Center's south tower.

In July, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States gave a status report about its ability to gather information. The Defense and Justice departments were given the lowest scores for cooperation.

Another status report on cooperation is due out later this month. The commission also plans to hold hearings in New Jersey and New York City this fall and will hold additional hearings in Washington over several months next year, Kean said. The commission's final report is due in May 2004 and likely will be available in bookstores.

Kean said he promised the families to do everything in his power to get them the answers to every question they have.

He said the commission is investigating how 19 al-Qaida members were able to get into the country and to board and hijack the commercial jetliners that crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a field in Shanksville, Pa.

The commission is trying to determine whether congressional oversight of intelligence agencies such as the FBI and CIA needs improvement.

"Would the intelligence agencies have made the same mistakes if they had good oversight from Congress?" Kean asked.

The commission also is looking into the time line of events on Sept. 11 to determine why military planes were not scrambled faster to divert the hijacked jetliners. Kean said he wants to know what Federal Aviation Administration employees saw on their screens that day.

"We have a two-part mission to provide a complete accounting to the American people of all the various aspects that produced 9/11," Kean said. "But the accounting itself is not enough. . . . We want to provide recommendations to make the American people safer so the families won't have to go through this again. We want to make sure (the victims) didn't die in vain."

Kean said the commission has learned a lot so far. But although he said he couldn't provide details until the report is complete, he said "there is not a huge revelation that has not been made before."

Kleinberg, 42, said she is frustrated that the commission hasn't been able to share information as it is learned.

"It is frustrating because it is two years later, and we can't get a question answered --not one," said Kleinberg, whose husband, Alan, worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in the Trade Center's north tower.

"I feel like a hamster in a wheel that keeps running in circles. . . . All we wanted was for some-one to find out what the holes were and to fix them," Klein-berg said.

Van Auken, 48, said she won-ders why so many of the docu-ments the commission request-ed were classified.

"It is more of the same secrecy," she said. "What are they hid-ing?"

Ron Motley of South Carolina, the lead attorney in a $100 tril-lion federal lawsuit that seeks to bankrupt the terrorists' fi-nancial networks, said he has faced similar obstacles obtain-ing documents from the federal government.

"The problem is the Justice De-partment and other depart-ments are not giving us docu-ments and the witness statements they obtained," said Motley, who is known for his success in litigation against to-bacco and asbestos companies.

But the case -- which lists 5,000 families as plaintiffs and names more than 130 defendants -- has had some success. More than 30 countries are cooperating and providing information, Motley said.

Insurance companies for hun-dreds of firms that were located in the World Trade Center plan to file a similar lawsuit tomor-row against individuals and other groups funding terrorists to recover several billion dol-lars paid through workers com-pensation and property damage claims, according to attorney Elliott R. Feldman, based in Philadelphia.

As the women continue to fight for answers, they fear that the government failed to learn any lessons from the terrorist at-tacks. Their greatest fear is that the country went to war in Iraq based on faulty intelli-gence that the country had weapons of mass destruction.

"Post-9/11, we find out that to some degree we could have pre-vented 9/11 and lives could have been saved," Breitweiser said. "There does not seem to be any impetus in Washington to do a post-mortem and fix the problem and even acknowledge responsibility. Then we have a war in Iraq, which is putting our soldiers and the American and Iraqi people at enormous risk, and we find out that, too, is based on bad information."

Casazza, 42, demands account-ability for the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq and the investigation into the ter-rorist attacks.

"Our questions have gone all the way to the White House, and we still can't get any-where," Casazza said. "Doesn't that say right there that our government is not being held accountable?"