The 9/11 Commission Reports

Nick Gillespie | July 22, 2004

In what has to be one of the most-anticipated commission reports since the Warren Commission, the panel investigating the 9/11 attacks has delivered its final report to the president.

In MSNBC's telling, the report "slams 'deep' failings in government." Snippets:

"Since the 9/11 plotters were flexible and resourceful, we cannot know whether any single step or series of steps would have defeated them," the bipartisan commission said. "What we can say with confidence is that none of the measures adopted by the U.S. government from 1998 to 2001 disturbed or even delayed the progress" of the plot by the al-Qaida network.

The report, as expected, called for the appointment of an overall director of U.S. intelligence operations....

The report also debunks what commissioners called �myths� that have built up around the terrorist strikes that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania, the officials said. Those include these findings:

* The Saudi government did not fund the 19 hijackers.

* Relatives of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden were not allowed to fly out of the country until after air traffic was allowed to move freely after it was grounded following the attacks. Moreover, those family members had no connection to the terrorist plot.

* Bush did not know about the specific threat beforehand, and there was little more that he could to prevent it....

The whole report is supposed to be released on the commission's web site later today.

Comments

|7.22.04 @ 1:06AM|#

I would just like to clarify that I was posting recently under the name "not Rick Barton," and I am not zorel. I am also not Dan. So there are at least 3 anti-Bartons around here.

|7.22.04 @ 2:25AM|#

Steve,

Just don't post as notJoe. It's taken!

|7.22.04 @ 2:40AM|#

No big deal, everybody has to be an anti-Barton at some point.

|7.22.04 @ 9:14AM|#

zorel,

First of all, thank you for the kind words.
I don't take much of anything as gospel. I'm very skeptical. I consider that antiwar.com has met my skepticism quite well and that they are usually ahead of the curve. I also consider the site to be an indispensable part of libertarian commentary.

I've said before that so many of Raimondo's predictions concerning Iraq, that he made pre-invasion, have come true that the new age types are probably going to start claiming he's clairvoyant.

In the case of the Israeli government's fore-knowledge of 9/11, I called attention to the heavy evidence for its existence that is assembled from a many sources in the link:
http://www.antiwar.com/israeli-files.php
and also in Justin Raimondo's book on the matter; The Terror Enigma: 9/11 And the Israeli Connection

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0595296823/reasonmagazineA/

Which btw, received a very interesting and favorable review in the July issue of Liberty magazine.

Although the "Protocols" was a hateful fraud and the target of this fraud was Jews, it does not follow that criticism of the Israeli government is fraudulent or hateful.

On political conspiracies in general: To reject them as out of hand is to assume that political power is never transmitted via the machinations of hidden collusion and miss-direction. Reality just doesn't work that way. In fact, in the apprehension political reality asking, the question, "who benefits?" often leads us in the right direction.

|7.22.04 @ 9:17AM|#

s.a.m.:

misleading is lying, and its done way too often in DC!

Hear! Hear! And I think that you are on target about MM's method: Deceive without actually lying.

|7.22.04 @ 9:26AM|#

steve,

Perhaps you can count, but I'm not so sure about how well you categorize.

Douglas,

Well ok, but since I post on so many different topics would that also mean that everybody has to be pro-me some point? ;)

|7.22.04 @ 11:06AM|#

All I can do is laugh when the commitee slams "deep failings in government" and then suggests the solution is to add yet another layer of management.

I like how our public servants don't even use the word "czar" ironically anymore.

|7.22.04 @ 11:08AM|#

Rick Barton, I am, dammit!

Then again, I also miss Jean Bart....

|7.22.04 @ 11:26AM|#

Relatives of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden were not allowed to fly out of the country until after air traffic was allowed to move freely after it was grounded following the attacks.

If true, that means that Michael Moore lied in Fahrenheit 9/11. Imagine that!

Also, I think that the report doesn't even cast an eye toward the elephant in the room...the heavy evidence that the Israeli government had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.

http://www.antiwar.com/israeli-files.php

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0595296823/reasonmagazineA/

And, the report's solution is to add yet another layer of government. Imagine that!

|7.22.04 @ 11:38AM|#

Rick,

According to Spinsanity, MM did not lie, he just mislead. He apparently said in his movie that the Bin Ladens were flown out of the country after Sept 13th. On Sept 14th, some commercial flights were allowed to fly again. All planes were grounded from the 11th to the 13th.

However, the way MM protrayed it, one would think that the Bin Ladens were flown out when everyone else was grounded.

As far as I am concerned, misleading is lying, and its done way too often in DC!

|7.22.04 @ 11:41AM|#

rick barton,

I wish you wouldn't keep broadcasting crap from antiwar.com as gospel. I further hope you don't really believe all that stuff. for the most part, I find you posts reasonable and informative (whether I agree or not). as soon as it comes to Israel, you trot a bunch of conspiracy theories right out of the Protocols or their sequels ...

care to educate me on what you think?

|7.22.04 @ 12:02PM|#

Is it me, or did anyone else get a sudden craving for synthetic narcotic painkillers?

I think I'm going to knock over a CVS pharmacy.

|7.23.04 @ 1:10AM|#

I'll say it, even if I do not believe it to be true. Jean Bart is (NOT) Gary Gunnels. And if he is, I hope the idiot from Ben & Jerry's goes to France with an effigy for him after the election . . .

not Rick Barton|7.23.04 @ 1:15AM|#

Oh please, joe. No, not all criticism of Israel is anti-semitic. Personally, I think they should stop building settlements. Doesn't make me an anti-Semite.

But the conspiracy theories Rick spouts are anti-Semitic. The idea that a cabal of Jews -- oh, sorry, Israelis -- controls the U.S. government with its own sinister agenda is a staple of anti-Semitism. I've given up on Rick, but I have some faith that you can see that.

|7.23.04 @ 2:36AM|#

I think Rick is a little to quick to dismiss charges of anti-semitism against certain figures (Pat Buchanan comes to mind), but nothing I've read in any of his posts is in the least antisemitic. He has never made charges that a cabal of Jews runs America, just that the Israel lobby has a great deal of power, and that this power distorts our government's policy. Reading this critique - which is also commonly made against AARP and the Saudis - as akin to the Protocols demonstrates either a Sharptonian eagerness to hurl charges of racism to win unrelated political arguments, or a hysterical conflation of legitimate criticism of Israeli and American policy with charges of Jewish conspiracy.

|7.23.04 @ 3:42AM|#

"We did nothing wrong, we just need more money" is the government's response to every problem.

Also, I think that the report doesn't even cast an eye toward the elephant in the room

... which, big surprise, is "the evil Jews were involved". Rick probably blames Israel when the milk in his fridge goes bad before its expiration date.

|7.23.04 @ 5:08AM|#

joe,

Thank you; I very much appreciate your coming to my defense. I am fast coming to the conclusion that if one opposes the actions of the Israeli government, their lobby or our government's support of the Israeli government; that some folks who lack principle will make accusations of anti-Semitism with out regard for the validity of those accusations.

not Rick Barton,

If, instead of the things that I post, I told pretty lies about the Israeli government and their lobby, I'm quite sure you wouldn't be using that handle. Also, I post on a lot of different subjects and you never seem to pop up on those threads. Perhaps you should use "not Rick Barton on Israel issues". But, that might be too revealing of your myopia, huh?

Is Israel special to you? If so, what you should be concerned with is the REAL racism of Ariel Sharon, evidenced by his support of "Jews Only" housing area laws on government land, an open discrimination against the 15% to 20% Arab citizens population of Israel.

http://www.eto.home.att.net/jewsonly.html

and:http://www.newsfrombabylon.com/article.php?sid=1779

|7.23.04 @ 5:59AM|#

Would one of you eternal smartasses at Reason Magazine puh-leeze use the title to the Public Enemy track "911 Is A Joke" in one of your articles covering this commission? I don't have a web site or I'd do it for you.

|7.23.04 @ 9:28AM|#

Dan,

Criticism of the Israeli government is not a criticism of Jews in general. How tough of a concept can this possibly be for you?

|7.23.04 @ 11:19AM|#

Rick, you don't really expect someone like Dan to pass on an effective, emotion-laden argument just because of a little thing like intellectual honesty, do you?

|7.24.04 @ 2:06AM|#

Let's imagine that a cabal of Jews does indeed control the whole U.S. government with its own sinister agenda.

This situation would still not justify anti-Semitism because the vast majority of Jews would not be involved with the cabal. In fact, it would be quite likely that the vast majority of Jews would be among the victims of this cabal.

|7.24.04 @ 3:13AM|#

Speaking of the Israeli government; The 9/11 Commission reported this:

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the man who conceived and directed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was motivated by his strong disagreement with American support for Israel, said the final report of the Sept. 11 commission... Whole story is at:

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/nation/9222612.htm

|7.24.04 @ 12:19PM|#

Also:

The report makes a strong case that al-Qaida accomplished the attacks without any hint of state sponsorship.

The report also appears to lay to rest the notion, long alluded to by administration officials including Vice President Dick Cheney, that hijacker Mohamed Atta traveled to the Czech Republic to meet an Iraqi intelligence operative in the spring of 2001.

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/nation/9222612.htm