Bush and Repubs Continue to Make 9/11 Probe Difficult

By Pat Shannan

Weary from traversing a path of hurdles and stonewalls, the independent commission attempting to investigate the 9/11 attacks may be stymied again. President George Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) have decided to oppose granting more time to an independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, virtually guaranteeing that the panel will have to complete its work by the end of May.

The statute that created the panel in 2002 requires it to complete a report for the president and Congress by May 27, with 60 days available after that to tie up loose ends, officials said.

A growing number of commissioners had concluded the panel needed more time to prepare a thorough and credible accounting of missteps leading to the attacks. But the White House and leading Republicans have informed the panel that they oppose any delay - delays that could spell trouble should controversies emerge during the heat of the presidential campaign, sources said.

President Bush and most members of his Republican administration have been behaving like the cat that ate the canary for more than two years now, whenever they were faced with penetrating questions about the terrorist attacks. The guardians of the castle claimed to have been "completely surprised" by the events of 9/11, but yet somehow knew within minutes that the deed was done by a terrorist hill-tribe in Afghanistan from deep within their anti-American caves.

The commission has been beleaguered by organizational problems and harsh debates with the Bush administration and New York City regarding access to documents.

"We need at least a few more months to complete our work," said commission member Timothy Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana. "We have a breathtaking task ahead of us, and we need enough time to make sure our work is credible and thorough."

The 10-member bipartisan panel has decided to scale back the number and scope of hearings it will hold for the public, commission members and staff said. The commission is rushing to finish interviews with as many as 200 remaining witnesses and to examine about 2 million pages of documents.

Officials say that public hearings in coming months will include testimony from key members from both the Bush and Clinton administrations. The roster is likely to include Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, CIA Director George Tenet, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Defense Secretary William Cohen and the current and former FBI directors. Commission members also are trying to secure private testimony from Bush, former President Bill Clinton, Vice President Dick Cheney and former Vice President Al Gore.

However, old time skeptics pay little heed to the "independent" label of the commission and fear another government white-washing comparable to the Warren Commission of forty years ago. This fear began with Bush's dubious appointment two years ago of Henry Kissinger to lead the commission. Kissinger resigned only two weeks later, before the commission was ever seated, and in the face of public outcry.

Many wonder if the questions will be asked that have seldom been raised in the mass media but, nevertheless, have raised much reasonable doubt as to veracity of the official story.

Questions such as 1] In the history of fire-fighting no high-rise building has ever collapsed from the melting of steel beams but two went down in less than an hour and another that wasn't even struck collapsed eight hours later - How? 2] Is NORAD really such a pathetic defense system or were the fighter pilots ordered to "stand down." 3] Did President Bush really see the first airliner hit at 8:47 a. m., as he publicly stated, and if so, by what medium did he see it? 4] If an airliner really hit the Pentagon, how did the fuselage disappear into a 12-foot hole?

Then there is the question of whether the FBI was merely acting too hastily with the naming of the Middle Eastern suspects or was this an intentional subterfuge?

For instance, as many as seven of the FBI-named culprits were found by foreign news services to be either alive and well only two weeks later or already deceased prior to the 9/11/01 incident.

Saudi Arabian pilot Waleed Al Shehri was one of the men that the FBI said had deliberately crashed American Airlines flight 11 into the World Trade Center. His photograph was released, and has since appeared in newspapers and on television around the world, protesting his innocence. He told journalists there that he had nothing to do with the attacks on New York and Washington, and had been in Morocco when they happened. He contacted both the Saudi and American authorities at the time, according to Saudi press reports.

He acknowledges that he attended flight training school at Daytona Beach in the United States, and is indeed the same Waleed Al Shehri to whom the FBI has been referring.

But, he says, he left the United States in September of 2000 and became a pilot with Saudi Arabian airlines in Morocco. He said he is an engineer with Saudi Telecoms, and that he lost his passport while studying in Denver. Another man with exactly the same name surfaced on the pages of the English-language Arab News in late September of 2001.

The second Abdulaziz Al Omari is a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines, the report said.

Mistaken Identity

Meanwhile, Asharq Al Awsat newspaper, a London-based Arabic daily, says it has interviewed Saeed Alghamdi. He was listed by the FBI as a hijacker in the United flight that crashed in Pennsylvania.

And there are suggestions that another suspect, Khalid Al Midhar, may also be alive.

FBI Director Robert Mueller later admitted that the identity of several of the suicide hijackers was in doubt.

Now, rumors are leaking, evidence is appearing, and testimony may be forthcoming that plans for a designed provocation for war with Iraq may have been in discussion in the White House during George Bush's first week of occupancy.

Will the commission attempt to get to the bottom of this?

Hijacking suspects

Flight 175: Marwan Al-Shehhi, Fayez Ahmed, Mohald Alshehri, Hamza Alghamdi and Ahmed Alghamdi Flight 11: Waleed M Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz Alomari and Satam Al Suqami Flight 77: Khalid Al-Midhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaq Alhamzi, Salem Alhamzi and Hani Hanjour Flight 93: Ahmed Alhaznawi, Ahmed Alnami, Ziad Jarrahi and Saeed Alghamdi

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