Friday, April 02, 2004

Bush Again Blocking Info to the 9/11 Commission

This morning's New York Times contains an article about the Bush administration's withholding -- get this! -- of Clinton administration documents from the 9/11 Commission.

As Jon Stewart might say, "Wha-a-a-a?!"

Nearly 11,000 pages of documents requested by the Commission and gathered from the National Archives with the cooperation of Bill Clinton, covering the Clinton administration's internal discussion regarding Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the strategy for dealing with Islamic terrorism ... three-quarters of them are now being withheld from the Commission on orders of the Bush administration, which apparently has the authority to withhold them, or at least is asserting that authority.

Why on earth? The Bushies, especially Condi Rice, has bragged much in recent weeks that "the Bush administration had a tougher, more comprehensive plan than the Clinton administration had for dealing with Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and the Taliban." So wouldn't these blocked papers demonstrate that?

Unless they DON'T demonstrate that. Ummmmm. Why would the Bush administration decide that papers which Bill Clinton is totally willing to share with the 9/11 Commission NOT want those papers shared, unless the iinevitable comparison was going to make the Bush administration look bad.

The evidence of cover-up is palpable and overwhelming. First, Bush didn't want a commission to investigate this stuff in the first place. Then, when it became politically difficult to oppose a commission, he agreed to it and then immediately began putting up roadblocks, both to documents AND to letting members of his administration testify under oath. What DON'T they want us to know, if not their own incompetence, now compounded by their own transparent mendacity?

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