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Monday, July 7, 2003

But the burden of blame for America's worst disaster may fall largely on the shoulders of Clinton.

Commission members, no doubt, will seek answers to serious questions from the former president, including why he stopped the CIA from recruiting spies within terrorist networks.

Also, the commission may want to know how the al-Qaeda terrorists easily penetrated the U.S. during Clinton's watch. The INS, which reported to Clinton's attorney general, Janet Reno, was negligent.

Once inside the U.S., the FBI under Bill Clinton appeared handcuffed. Agents warned of a coming terrorist disaster as specific intelligence of Muslims training to fly jets was ignored.

In editions hitting newsstands this week, Time magazine quotes one commission member, former Navy secretary John Lehman, as stating that he wants both Clinton and Bush to meet with the commission to discuss what their administrations knew about the al-Qaeda terrorist plots and what was done to combat them prior to the attacks.

With the 10-member commission evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, Lehman's position makes it likely that a majority will request the interviews.

"I don’t think any commission should ever formally call a president to testify," Lehman told Time, "but I think it is very much in the country's interest – and in both President Clinton's and President Bush's interest – to meet directly with the commissioners."

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer responded, "The White House has been and will continue to cooperate with the commission."

No 'Bombshells' – Yet

Meanwhile, according to a Scripps Howard report, no earthshaking bombshells will drop this week when the 9/11 commission publishes its first interim report. Basically, according to the news service, the commission will depict the nation as utterly unprepared for such a cataclysmic event – and slow in responding.

Reportedly the panel, led by former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a Republican, and former Congressman Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., will also highlight the whistle-blowing FBI agents who lobbied unsuccessfully for a closer look at a variety of suspicious activity that is known now to have been a precursor to the al-Qaeda attack.

If the investigation fever currently brewing on Capitol Hill has its way, Clinton and Bush will be joined in the pressure cooker by the CIA, an agency that Richard Shelby, former top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, complains has hampered the congressional probe into the Sept. 11 attacks.

Also in the pot for rendering will be the government of Saudi Arabia. Now off the intelligence panel, Shelby, as the new chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is cranking up hearings aimed at terrorist funding. Shelby’s office said the probe will hone in on the governments of Saudi Arabia and Yemen and what they're doing to cut off the flow of terrorists' funds.

According to a U.S. News and World Report article, senior U.S. intelligence officials are urging all congressional investigators to exclude from any final public report any information about alleged Saudi government assistance to some of the 19 hijackers.

A Delicate Matter

Relations with the Arab country are always a delicate matter, since the Saudis have ostensibly been good allies in the War on Terrorism. However, U.S. News reported that some members of the House and Senate intelligence committees conducting the investigation have become convinced via a collage of soft evidence that officials of the Saudi government were collaterally involved in the terrorist attacks.

Reportedly, new information in the congressional report, from intelligence sources, indicates that Saudi officials may have provided logistical support for the hijackers.

"It is very sketchy information, inconclusive by a long shot," a government official told U.S. News, adding that both the CIA and the FBI have been urging congressional officials not to include "highly speculative information" in the final report.

A draft of the 900-page report includes the names of several Saudi officials who allegedly helped the hijackers. Officials declined to reveal to U.S. News the identities of the Saudi officials.

In any event, the debate is on over what portions of the report or reports can be declassified and included in the version to be made available to the public.

Editor's note:

For more info on Clinton read: Catastrophe: Clinton's Role in America's Worst Disaster – Click Here.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Al-Qaeda
Bush Administration
Clinton Scandals
Homeland/Civil Defense
War on Terrorism