9/11 Update
From My Way News:
Draft portions of the Sept. 11 commission's final report offer a stinging rebuke of the FBI and intelligence agencies but refrain from assigning blame to individuals in government to avoid the appearance of partisanship, several commissioners say.
The 10-member panel still is wrestling over recommendations to shore up the intelligence gaps and communications breakdowns that allowed the hijackers to succeed, four commissioners told The Associated Press in separate interviews.
"There's broad consensus that major changes are needed. This is not just a question of running faster, jumping higher," said Republican commissioner John Lehman, a former secretary of the Navy. "We need to ensure the fusion and sharing of all intelligence that could have helped us to avoid 9/11."
Among the ideas under consideration is a domestic intelligence agency modeled after Britain's MI5.
Democratic commissioner Timothy Roemer said FBI Director Robert Mueller's recent proposal to improve domestic surveillance by creating an intelligence service within the bureau is another option under review by the panel but might not be enough.
"Certainly there's consensus the FBI has not done a good job prior to 9/11, and they have a long way to go," said Roemer, a former Indiana congressman.
From the New York Times:
The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee are pressing the Central Intelligence Agency to agree to a broad declassification and release of the panel's 400-page report, which is highly critical of the agency's prewar performance on Iraq.
The agency and, ultimately, the White House have the power to decide how much of the report should be declassified, giving them great influence over a document that will focus on mistakes related to Iraq and its illicit weapons. The Senate could vote to release classified material even over White House objections, but such a step would be rare.
The jockeying pits Senators Pat Roberts of Kansas and John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the ranking Republican and Democrat on the panel, against the top C.I.A. officials who must approve decisions involving declassification. Both senators have signaled their belief that the fullest possible disclosure of the agency's performance on Iraq is in the public interest.
A senior intelligence official said Tuesday that the report was "heavily laden" with classified material and that portions would require significant rewriting or deletions before it could be released to the public. But in an interview, Mr. Rockefeller said flatly, "We cannot have this as a heavily redacted document."
Mr. Roberts, the committee chairman, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that he planned "a full court press" to encourage the C.I.A. to release the document in near original form, and he said he had asked White House officials to exert "all possible cooperation" in that effort.
Matt's Chat
So, the 9/11 reports are going to be very critical of both the FBI and the CIA. They are considering a number of recommendations, including establishing an MI-5 type domestic intelligence agency (libertarians, let me hear you roar!). And lastly, the Senate Intelligence Committee doesn't want their report to be heavily edited even though it contains highly classified material throughout the document.Government work sounds like a fun job to me...
Mark's Remarks
Has anyone gotten out the duct tape yet? This whole thing is getting ridiculous. Let's just get it over with. We know, Bush was at the remote controls of the planes, that he gave the terrorists the boxcutters, and that afterward, he and Chalabi illicitly paid off the rest of the civilized world (other than France and Russia) to go into Iraq simply to go in. At least that is what the bogus 9/11 commission will want to say.
Look, the facts of the matter are this: The intelligence community was a mess after 8 years of gutting and proposed gutting by the likes of BILL CLINTON and JOHN KERRY. Remember that little Kerry Amendment, that wanted to basically disband the CIA and cut other intel funding? Then we have that great Gorelick memo. Gee, Jamie, where is your personal acknowledgement of building the wall that led to the deaths of 3000? After all, it happened on your watch at Justice. This intel community was working on frayed ends, but it was doing the best it could. Not to mention that the whole world was saying Saddam had weapons, and the french should know, since they supplied a lot of them to him. Of course, we won't hear the truth listed above, because it has not become about truth or fixing a problem, it is about politics. Thank you, political hacks like Oricharda bin Vineste and Co.
