Chris, can you post this over at PGWB, or has MKTBUZZ censored you off as well?
BREAKING NEWS -- 9/11 CITIZENS WATCH --
Subject: BREAKING NEWS: 9/11 Commission Chair says attacks should have been prevented.
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 01:38:42 -0500
From: "Kyle F. Hence" <kylehence@earthlink.net>
Organization: 9/11 CitizensWatch
Open Letter to Elected Representatives, Concerned Citizens, Members of the Press and the 9/11 Commissioners
and Staff.
In response to breaking news in the 9/11 investigation...
For nearly a year at nearly every opportunity the 9/11 Commission had to communicate with the public they deflected focus away from the issue of accountability or assigning blame. Now in one shocking Randal Pinston interview with 9/11 Commission Chair Thomas Kean we have witnessed a major turnabout -- a sea change with major implications that will likely open the floodgates of long overdue questions and pressure on President Bush, the CIA, FBI, NORAD and his whole National Security Council to come clean on '9/11'. This is long overdue and a hopeful sign. But real results will only follow concrete action, follow-up and relentless focus on the full sprectrum of open questions, mysteries, and discrepencies surrounding the events of 9/11.
Independent researchers and Congress have documented detailed warnings from at least 11 nations, nearly an hour of inaction by NORAD and national leadership to scramble jets to protect D.C. airspace and intercept flight 77, and capable (but undermined or obstructed) FBI field agents in multiple investigations raising the alarm over possible hijack attacks by Arab flight students and Al-Qeada financing in the U.S. (to name just a few instances in need of explanation). In each case we have manifest failure amounting to criminal negligence and even the spectre of complicity from within this Administration and/or major government agencies. What is clear is that there has been zero accountability and a record of cover-up by all the
concerned agencies while the White House itself has raised suspicions and skepticism by their stonewalling, reluctant
cooperation and evasive answers to questions about the warnings they recieved.
Finally, the official silence has been broken in the investigation of the worst mass murder in U.S history, That this placing of blame and responsibilty squarely on the Bush Administration came from a Republican is news enough but that it was the Chairman of the 9/11 Commission Bush signed into law is a stunning and encouraging development especially for the family members, many of whom voted for President Bush, who doggedly fought for this Commission and who have insisted on direct and personal accountability. 9/11 widow Ellen Mariani's civil RICO suit against President Bush and members of his cabinet bears being watched more closely in light of chairman Kean's comments [see 911forthetruth.com]
Perhaps at long lost we will see long overdue attention placed on the work of the 9/11 Commission especially in upcoming hearings to be held early in 2004. Chairman Kean should be commended for bravely speaking his mind on the accountability issue especially given a military and government culture that denies it at every turn. And Randall Pinkston should be commended for asking him the hard questions and forcing the issue. But the rubber meets the road in the actions Chairman Kean and the Commission (and if necessary Congress) will take in the upcoming months.
Will they conduct substantive public hearings with first hand witnesses providing testimony under oath and properly
'cross-examined'?
Will they publicly Presidents Bush and Clinton, Condaleeza Rice, the Air National Guard pilots, Air Traffic Controllers and other direct witnesses or participants?
Will they remove Executive Director Dr. Phillip Zelikow from his role reviewing the Presidential Daily Briefings given his blatant conflict of interest with the National Security Counsel and President Bush?
Will they question U.S. field generals who have insisted that Osama Bin Laden was not their aim in the Central Asian theatre and that he was no longer a priority because "he had taken himself out of the picture?"
Will they independently examine the evidence of sophisticated insider trading on United and American airlines and other stocks that would have been deemed most likely hardest hit by an attack on the WTC?
Will the Commission force release of video footage of the strike on the Pentagon?
Will the Commission question government officials involved in pre-9/11 Pentagon and NRO simulations of commercial jet
crashing into their respective buildings?
Will they explain how it was the White House staff went on Cipro (not in the PDR protocol for Anthrax treatment) on
September 11th weeks before the anthrax attacks?
Or what threat assessment led the FBI to recommend that Attorney General Ashcroft stop flying commercially in July of 2001?
This, just a sampling of some of the issues that must be addressed going forward.
The Commission has less than six months remaining to fulfill its mandate. Given that fact it has taken this long for Commissioners to finally relent to pressure and acknowledge the need for accountability, given how long it has taken for subpoenas to be issued non-cooperative agencies, and given the compromised agreement reached with the White House over access to the PDBs it is time for Congress to step in and hold parallel hearings on these issues and thus exercise oversight of the most important and high stakes investigation in the history of our Republic. Concrete actions must be taken by concerned
citizens and responsible media to insure Kean's statement is just the beginning of a new determination to get to the whole truth behind 9/11 and hold those responsible to account. Words must be followed by concrete and hard-nosed, uncompromising action and it's up to us to be sure this is exactly what comes to pass. If Congress and the Commission fail to bring integrity to this investigation, then the Commission will be viewed as the Warren Commission and an International Truth Commission will become a manifest necessity.
All along the watchtower...let us not talk falsely now...the hour is drawing near.
Kyle F. Hence
9/11 CitizensWatch
www.911citizenswatch.org
401-847-1963
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From Truthout.com:
Editor's Note | It has been two years and three months since America absorbed the horrific attacks of September 11. A fight has been waged since then to determine the facts behind that terrible day: How did it happen? Why was it not stopped? The Bush administration has fought the official investigations into these attacks every step of the way, going so far as to nominate master secret-keeper Henry Kissinger to chair the investigation. They failed in this nomination, and wound up with former New Jersey Governor and fellow Republican Thomas Kean. Today, Kean has fired an incredible broadside across the bow of the White House, stating bluntly that the attacks of September 11 could have and should have been stopped, and that blame
for this failure rests squarely on the shoulders of the Bush administration. -- William Rivers Pitt (Editor, Truthout.com)
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cbsnews.com
9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable
CBS News
December 17, 2003
For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.
"This is a very, very important part of history and we've got to tell it right," said Thomas Kean.
"As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done," he said. "This was not something that had to happen."
Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame.
"There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean said.
To find out who failed and why, the commission has navigated a political landmine, threatening a subpoena to gain access to the president's top-secret daily briefs. Those documents may shed light on one of the most controversial assertions of the Bush administration ? that there was never any thought given to the idea that terrorists might fly an airplane into a building.
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," said national security adviser Condoleeza Rice on May 16, 2002.
"How is it possible we have a national security advisor coming out and saying we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI records from 1991 stating that this is a possibility," said Kristen Breitweiser, one of four New Jersey widows who lobbied Congress and the president to appoint the commission.
The widows want to know why various government agencies didn't connect the dots before Sept. 11, such as warnings from FBI offices in Minnesota and Arizona about suspicious student pilots.
"If you were to tell me that two years after the murder of my husband that we wouldn't have one question answered, I wouldn't believe it," Breitweiser said.
Kean admits the commission also has more questions than answers.
Asked whether we should at least know if people sitting in the decision-making spots on that critical day are still in those positions, Kean said, "Yes, the answer is yes. And we will."
Kean promises major revelations in public testimony beginning next month from top officials in the FBI, CIA, Defense Department, National Security Agency and, maybe, President Bush and former President Clinton.
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