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Gov't Withholding Other 9-11 Documents, Evading Past Intel Brief Policy
Congressional oversight continues to allow the White House and 9/11 Commission to withhold from the American people other intelligence briefs, directives and/or threat assessments which may mention "hijacking" or "planes used as weapons or missiles" or "young Arabs learning to fly at U.S. flight schools," or other similar phrases which could indicate more evidence of advance knowledge or warning of the attacks. The Commission has not sought declassification of all other pre-9/11 documents similar to the August 6 briefing which could indicate a patttern of warnings over time.
President's Daily Brief Coverup
by Thomas S. Blanton
April 8, 2004
[Editor's Note: This piece offers evidence that the legislative and executive branches, and also the 9-11 Commission are being less than honest with the American people--leading them to believe that presidential daily briefs are never declassified. Thomas Blanton offers credible evidence that the chairman of the 9/11 Commission issued (or may have been counseled by White House or Commission lawyers to issue) a false statement after swearing in Dr. Condoleezza Rice for her testimony under oath last week. There is evidence and historical documentation that intelligence briefs, memos, directives, threat assessments, and other like documents may be declassified by simply redacting "sources and methods." This would allow Americans to determine for themselves whether there was ongoing evidence of prior knowledge and/or advance warning of the September 11 attacks or that the U.S. should have been better prepared. See the evidence below.]
The most contentious moments of today's nationally televised hearing of the commission investigating the September 11th terrorist attacks focused on the controversial secret intelligence briefing received by President Bush on August 6, 2001 - a top-level document called the President's Daily Brief. Commission members Bob Kerrey, Richard Ben-Veniste and Timothy Roemer each asked national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to declassify the document, and each time she ducked the direct question, telling Mr. Roemer that "I think you know the sensitivity of presidential decision memoranda."
The White House resisted the commission for months on the question of their access to the Briefs, (Note 1) but after public pressure from the commission and victims' families, relented somewhat. Prior to today's hearing, three commission members and its staff director got to see the originals of President's Daily Briefs from the Bush and Clinton years relating to terrorism. They then wrote up a summary for their peers. (Note 2) But the direct quotes from the August 6, 2001 President's Daily Brief read into the record today, both by commission members and by Dr. Rice, point to an underlying reality - that the Brief [and any other intelligence briefs, memos, threat assessments, or directives] could be declassified and released publicly, simply by blacking out the "sources-and-methods" information.
For example, each of the following italicized statements is a myth, and below the myth in plain type is the reason why.
The chair of the 9/11 commission, former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean, said that "[t]hese are documents that only two or three people would normally have access to. To make those available to an outside group is something that no other president has done in our history." (Note 3)
[Was Thomas Kean counseled by White House or Commission lawyers to issue this false statement during testimony at a crucial hearing for the purpose of obstructing the promulgation of full and complete evidence? Congress has not deemed the 3,000 death mass murder on U.S. soil to be meritorious enough to impanel a grand jury with career prosecutors.
Click on the link below to learn whether government branches and agencies are being employed to deflect, obstruct, obfuscate and otherwise withhold important additional evidence from the 9-11 families.]
Actually, ten President's Daily Briefs are in the public domain, officially declassified by the U.S. government.......
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