My letter to the editor:

Dear Editor,

People believe what you call "9/11 conspiracy theories" in part because the 9/11 Commission was such an obvious farce.

Bush and Cheney waited 441 days before allowing a commission, and voiced public opposition to the idea of an independent investigation of the worst terrorist attack in US history. That fact in itself is one of the most incredible and despicable facts of the post-9/11 period.

When he finally relented Bush appointed Henry Kissinger to be the executive director of the commission, a move of supreme cynicism.

Kissinger stepped down after being quesitoned by the 9/11 families, and was replaced by White House insider Philip Zelikow. Zelikow had co-authored a book with Condoleezza Rice, authored the 2002 national security doctrine endorsing pre-emptive war, and was a member of the National Security Council and a former director of the Aspen Strategy Group, whose emeritus members include Rice, Cheney, Scooter Libby, and disgraced NY Times reporter Judith Miller. The rest of the commission sported a variety of conflicts of interest, but it was Zelikow who controlled the activities of the commission and the final edit of the report.

Bush and Cheney refused to testify under oath, or even in separate rooms. They appeared before the commission together, not under oath, and forbid any recording equipment in the room.

The commission did not answer 70% of the questions they were asked by the Family Steering Committee, without whose tenacity the 9/11 Commission would not exist.

NORAD generals and FAA officials perjured themselves in their testimony. This is not disputed by the commission chair and vice chair, Kean and Hamilton, who considered taking the matter to the DOJ.

Evidence was destroyed. Only a small fraction of the steel from the WTC site was preserved for study, which means evidence from a crime scene was destroyed en masse. An FAA manager destroyed tapes of interviews with FAA controllers on 9/11. And there were other examples.

Much of chapters 5 and 7 of the report was based on the alleged testimony of Al Qaeda detainees, who were tortured. On page 146 of the report, the commissioners declared they had not met the detainees, were not allowed to question the detainees, and were not allowed to submit questions to the interrogators. These Detainee Interrogation Reports emerged from a black hole within the national security state. Now we are told that video of one of the central interrogations was destroyed by the CIA.

On page 172 of the report, the commission declares that it does not know where the financing for the attacks originated, and declares the matter "of little practical significance."

I could go on. But I think even these few examples show how secretive, cynical, and fundamentally dishonest were the actions of the government following 9/11. The Bush government lied about Iraq, about the widespread use of torture, about illegal domestic spying, and about dozens of other scandals that have seemingly been forgotten by Mr. Bradley. Why is 9/11 considered considered the one thing about which the Bush regime would not lie, even in light of its refusal to cooperate with the commission it belatedly appointed and stocked with insider hacks?

Sincerely,