An independent commission on the September 11 2001 terror attacks, established along similar lines to the intelligence inquiry announced by the United States White House this week, has been dogged by a constant struggle between the investigators and the Republican administration, which the commission regularly accuses of hampering its work.
The commission has revealed chilling lapses in US’s defences: the missed opportunities to arrest the hijackers before the attacks, and the breakdown in communications that allowed them to board their flights.
Further revelations are expected from the public hearings now under way in which commission members have questioned officials from the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency and the Pentagon.
However, members of the 10-strong bipartisan commission openly accuse the administration of sabotaging their work through endless delays, making it impossible to meet a May 2004 reporting deadline.
The White House is unlikely to favour giving the commission more time. Its chairperson, the former governor of New Jersey, Thomas Kean, has indicated that its conclusions could be politically explosive.
”That was not something that had to happen,” Kean told a television interviewer last year. He has also called for the officials responsible for the intelligence failure to be sacked. No CIA or FBI officials lost their jobs after the terrorist attacks.
These are not themes President George W Bush wants to hear as he girds up for a re-election battle next November that will be fought on national security.
The commission, officially named the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, was set up in September 2002 and charged with conducting an exhaustive examination of aviation, immigration and national security policies.
Its very existence was a subject of dispute. The commission was fiercely opposed by the White House, which then sought to keep a sure hand on proceedings by appointing Henry Kissinger as its chairperson. Kissinger’s tenure was brief. He withdrew when forced to choose between the commission and his business interests.
His replacement, Kean, has had a rough ride. He has complained about bureaucratic resistance from the Bush administration, and says its delays in handing over documents to his investigators has seriously hampered its work.
The commission fought a very public battle with the White House last year to obtain a memo given to Bush on August 6 2001 in which the CIA warned that al-Qaeda could be planning to hijack airliners in the US.
The president’s staff agreed to hand over the documents to a commission sub-committee after Kean threatened to issue a subpoena. — Â