Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.
Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said.
In the end, the panel agreed to a compromise, turning over the allegations to the inspectors general for the Defense and Transportation departments, who can make criminal referrals if they believe they are warranted, officials said.
"We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us," said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. "It was just so far from the truth. . . . It's one of those loose ends that never got tied."
Although the commission's landmark report made it clear that the Defense Department's early versions of events on the day of the attacks were inaccurate, the revelation that it considered criminal referrals reveals how skeptically those reports were viewed by the panel and provides a glimpse of the tension between it and the Bush administration.
A Pentagon spokesman said yesterday that the inspector general's office will soon release a report addressing whether testimony delivered to the commission was "knowingly false." A separate report, delivered secretly to Congress in May 2005, blamed inaccuracies in part on problems with the way the Defense Department kept its records, according to a summary released yesterday.
hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said.
Aquafin, I believe what you have here is the proverbial "deer in the headlights" embarassment surfacing among the decision makers...the events were so shocking and unbelievableand never seen before...humans will trip and stumble and their normal reaction times lengthen with the severity of uncertainty of the circumstances...doesn't change the fact that the events did happen, happened quicklyand were unlike nothing the world has seen to date...
Just curious, say you were having a party at your house and I showed up and parked a 747 in your living room.Would you tell the media you handled it pretty well or would you tell them the truth that you pissed your pants, screamed like a women,and cried in the corner?What would your friends tell them?
It would be refreshing to see someone tell the truth in politics but nobody wants to look that bad
CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty tag-teamed on the VF piece and FAA audio clips yesterdy (8/2/2006), thanks Mike for sending these in (if somebody has the Tucker Carlson bit from last night send it in.)
Quite a bit of truth here to that story..... Those who think people wear tin foil hats and make fun of them should be careful that it doesn't turn around and make them foolish looking.....
9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon
Similar Aught.....You might be on to something.
