Informant38

It is vital in this to remember that the Bush administration thwarted this independent investigation for 18 months, until they got the two things they wanted. What they wanted was a requirement that any subpoenas would be issued only after six of the ten people on the commission voted for it. The commission is comprised of five Democrats and five Republicans. If a particular subpoena seems to cut too close to the political bone, the Republicans on the committee need only stand shoulder to shoulder to stop it.

The other requirement the Bush administration demanded was the right to pick the chairman of the commission. One need look no further than the first choice, Henry Kissinger, to see the reasons for this. Ostensibly, this investigation has been proposed so that nothing like 9/11 ever happens again. The Bush administration chose Kissinger to see this mission through, demonstrating that they are far more interested in keeping secrets than they are in getting to the bottom of this.

Now, we have Thomas Kean, a man with no training or background in any of the areas necessary to the investigation, a man who does not appear capable of taking on the intelligence community and the administration, much less the five other Republicans who will have veto power over the issuance of subpoenas. It is difficult to imagine Thomas Kean pushing hard for answers to questions like these:

Why did George W. Bush order the dismantling of the Bin Laden Task Force prior to 9/11?

Was the Bush administration involved in negotiations with the Taliban prior to 9/11 regarding a pipeline project to be undertaken in Afghanistan by Unocal Petroleum and a consortium of other corporations and nations, including Saudi Arabia?

Why were fighter interceptors not scrambled after it became clear that commercial aircraft had been hijacked?

Who made the decision to stop FBI Deputy Director John O'Neill from investigating al Qaeda financial accounts? What did Barbara Bodine, U.S. ambassador to Yemen, have to do with pulling O'Neill off the case?

Why were the Black Boxes and flight data recorders from the hijacked aircraft never recovered?

What was Saudi Arabia's involvement with the hijackers and the 9/11 plot?

Why were pointed warnings received from Israel, Egypt, Germany and Russia, which detailed a plot to hijack aircraft and use them to attack prominent American targets, virtually ignored? Again, why were fighter jets not scrambled since this warning was already in hand?

What corporations are currently profiting from the War on Terror? In particular, how much does the multinational corporation The Carlyle Group, an entity steeped in petroleum production and weapons sales, stand to make from the conflict?

William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective