Administration Faces Supoenas From 9/11 Panel

UPDATE: NY POST insults Tom Kean, head of commission: "Mutiny","Sun King", "Conspiracy Theorist" (10/28)
UPDATE: Bush Hints at Compromise over Demand for 9-11 Documents (10/28)

UPDATE: White House Accused of Stalling 9-11 Panel (AP)
White House urged to submit 9/11 documents (by Hagel and Liebermann) (CNN 10/26)

UPDATE: White House withholding 9/11 Files -- Report  (Reuters)

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"Any document that has to do with this investigation cannot be beyond our reach," Mr. Kean said on Friday in his first explicit public warning to the White House that it risked a subpoena and a politically damaging courtroom showdown with the commission over access to the documents, including Oval Office intelligence reports that reached President Bush's desk in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks. "I will not stand for it," Mr. Kean said in the interview in his offices here at Drew University, where he is president. "That means that we will use every tool at our command to get hold of every document."

Mr. Kean's comments on Friday came as another member of the commission, Max Cleland, the former Democratic senator from Georgia, became the first panel member to say publicly that the commission could not complete its work by its May 2004 deadline and the first to accuse the White House of withholding classified information from the panel for purely political reasons.

White House withholding 9/11 files -- report

http://www.reuters.co.uk

Does Max Cleland imply foreknowledge of the attacks?

"..."As each day goes by, we learn that this government knew a whole lot more about these terrorists before Sept. 11 than it has ever admitted."

Tom Kean has similar quotes in the NY Times

"..."Anything that has to do with 9/11, we have to see it - anything. There are a lot of theories about 9/11, and as long as there is any document out there that bears on any of those theories, we're going to leave questions unanswered. And we cannot leave questions unanswered."

White House urged to submit 9/11 documents

CNN -Sunday, October 26, 2003

"The American people deserve some answers," said Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, co-sponsor of the bill that created the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, urged it to subpoena White House officials if necessary.

"The fact that the Bush administration is not cooperating with a commission investigating how September 11 happened is outrageous," said Lieberman, a Democratic presidential candidate.

"What are they hiding? What's on the line here is finding out everything we can about how September 11 happened so we can make sure we do everything to see that it never happens again."

A spokesman for the commission, led by former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, said members were considering subpoenas if the White House refused to turn over classified documents.

"It's not a means that you want to use lightly or overuse," said Al Felzenberg. "It is an instrument we have at our disposal."

Mon, 27 Oct 2003

Before Senator McCain gets up on the floor of the Senate to call for an extension of the Commission's deadline, as he has offered to do, the appropriate committees in both the House and Senate should hold hearings to address a range of concerns being raised by 9/11 victim family members, the Commissioners themselves and many others.

Just as the Administration has been engaging in stonewalling and foot-dragging relative to Commission requests for 9/11 related documents, so has the Commission been 'foot-dragging' relative to exercising its power to issue these subpoenas while it 'negotiates' over access.

The Commission knew over 6 months ago it would need access to critical intelligence documents from the NSC and the Oval Office. Despite a looming deadline, they have played softball and not aggressively pursued these documents; perhaps in part because the Commission's Executive Director, Phillip Zelikow, has close ties to National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice (they've co-authored a book) and to the National Security Council which he helped organize through the transition from the Clinton Administration to the Bush Administration.

Earlier conflicts of interests illuminated through the efforts of victim family members have led to Commissioners with close ties to the Airlines to recuse themselves from aspects of the investigation dealing with Aviation industry related matters. Now an apparent conflict of interest with the Commission's Executive Director and a pattern of stonewalling by the White House, FAA and DoD may force the Congress to extend the Commission's deadline.

Before this occurs it is incumbent upon members of Congress to exercise their oversight role and review the work of the Commission and hear from the family members who have a long list of serious concerns about the work of the Commission.

The Commission's dismissal of the family's concern over Zelikow's conflicts of interest and its willingness to tolerate unexplained delays over access to 'highly material' White House documents is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the families are concerned.

Bush Hints at Compromise over Demand for 9-11 Documents

KTRE, TX -October 28

President Bush says the White House is cooperating with an independent probe of 9-11 , but says some requested documents are "very sensitive."

Bush also said he thinks he can reach an agreement to let the panel "take a look" at some of the material.

That includes the Presidential Daily Brief, the intelligence community's regular summary of what it knows. One such brief before 9-11 cautioned hijackers might use an airplane as a weapon.

Bush said he hopes to ensure that brief isn't "politicized," or, as he put it, "unnecessarily exposed for public purview."

NY POST attacks Tom Kean, head of commission

John Podhoretz, son of PNAC-Norman Podhoretz insults Kean:
"Sun King", "Conspiracy Theorist"

Kean Mutiny

NY POST -October 28, 2003

"..Now the independent commission chosen by the president to investigate the inability of the U.S. government to prevent the 9/11 attacks is showing signs of becoming a runaway train.

...In an extraordinarily belligerent public comment, commission chairman Thomas Kean told The New York Times that "any document that has to do with this investigation cannot be beyond our reach . . . I will not stand for it."

..."These are documents that only two or three people would normally have access to," Kean admitted. "To make those available to an outside group is something that no other president has done in our history."

And yet in the same breath he says he "will not stand for it" if he is denied this material? That is arrogance of a really mind-blowing sort.

...Kean, who seems to have confused his position with that of the Sun King, even manages to claim that his commission has greater powers and authority than the United States Congress and the executive branch combined .

...Kean is arguing that his "unique" commission possesses an authority superior to that of the body, Congress, which created it. That's ridiculous. How can Congress grant powers it does not itself possess?

...Kean wants these documents. To get them, he has decided to wage public war against the administration. "There are a lot of theories about 9/11, and as long as there is any document out there that bears on any of those theories, we're going to leave questions unanswered," Kean told the Times. "And we cannot leave questions unanswered."

In the name of clearing up conspiracy theories, Kean has now made it inevitable that the conspiracy theorists will never accept the commission's findings. With the preening self-righteousness that characterizes his blessedly anachronistic brand of liberal Republicanism, Thomas Kean has now only added to the ugly divisiveness of the present moment.

E-mail: podhoretz@nypost.com

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