Bush's 9/11 coverup?
Family members of victims of the terror attacks say the White House has smothered every attempt to get to the bottom of the outrageous intelligence failures that took place on its watch.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/06/18/911/

By Eric Boehlert

June 18, 2003 | For family members of those who died on Sept. 11, last week brought a rare chance to meet face-to-face with a man who has become a symbol of their dissatisfaction -- FBI director Robert Mueller. The bureau had quietly invited several dozen family members to Washington to hear a presentation on the war on terrorism, but for the small band of husbands, wives and parents who successfully lobbied Congress last year for an independent 9/11 commission to investigate the attacks, it was a chance to ask some of the troubling questions they have about that day.

They weren't simply queries about the national security collapse that occurred on 9/11, and how a hijacked plane, flying hundreds of miles off course, was able to dive-bomb untouched into the Pentagon a full hour after the World Trade Center had already been attacked twice. Or how more than a dozen terrorists were able to enter America illegally and then live here undetected for weeks and months, and why U.S. intelligence sources failed to piece together significant clues that emerged in advance of the attack.

Family advocates also wanted to know why the government -- and specifically the Bush administration -- has been so reluctant to find answers to any of the obvious questions about what went wrong that day, why so little has been fixed, and why virtually nobody has accepted any responsibility for the glaring failures.

While the administration of President George W. Bush is aggressively positioning itself as the world leader in the war on terrorism, some families of the Sept. 11 victims say that the facts increasingly contradict that script. The White House long opposed the formation of a blue-ribbon Sept. 11 commission, some say, and even now that panel is underfunded and struggling to build momentum. And, they say, the administration is suppressing a 900-page congressional study, possibly out of fear that the findings will be politically damaging to Bush.

"We've been fighting for nearly 21 months -- fighting the administration, the White House," says Monica Gabrielle. Her husband, Richard, an insurance broker who worked for Aon Corp. on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center's Tower 2, died during the attacks. "As soon as we started looking for answers we were blocked, put off and ignored at every stop of the way. We were shocked. The White House is just blocking everything."

Another 9/11 family advocate -- a former Bush supporter who requested anonymity -- was more blunt: "Bush has done everything in his power to squelch this [9/11] commission and prevent it from happening."

Thus far, the administration has largely succeeded. Its stonewalling has gotten little news coverage, and there is scant evidence that the public is outraged. The national discussion has moved on -- to Iraq, to that country's still-missing weapons of mass destruction, to Laci Peterson. But there are increasing signs that White House efforts to blunt a full inquiry into the domestic failures that preceded Sept. 11 could emerge as an issue in the 2004 presidential campaign, in which Bush and his handlers hope to exploit 9/11 for maximum political advantage.

Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat and former chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has raised the profile of his presidential campaign with sharp criticism of Bush for both his administration's intelligence failures before Sept. 11 and its attempt to paper them over since. "The public has the right to know what its government has done and is doing to protect Americans and U.S. interests," Graham told Salon Monday. "Potential embarrassment isn't a good enough reason to keep these government materials secret."

Other Democrats almost certainly will realize that the issue is one way to counter the public's belief that Bush has been an effective leader in the war on terrorism.

Perhaps it was fear of a backlash that provoked Bush's staff to invite the Sept. 11 families to the Mueller seminar. But by the accounts of several people who attended the briefing at FBI headquarters, in a wing named after Bush's father, the mood was often contentious as the FBI chief and Department of Justice prosecutors answered questions for more than two hours. One flash point came during a sharp exchange about what the FBI had -- or had not -- done with several internal memos filed by field agents detailing concerns that al-Qaida operatives may be training at U.S. flight schools. Mueller confirmed that weeks before the Sept. 11 attack, one young FBI agent had seen two such memos but that she did not act on them.

According to family representatives, Mueller defended the agent, saying she did not have the proper training or tools to take action on the information. But when pressed on how such egregious oversight was able to occur, the director grew defensive and then demanded: "What do you want me to do, fire her?"

The remark was meant to be rhetorical, but in unison family members responded audibly: "Yes!"

"We're the most skeptical audience Mueller will ever have, and I think it showed," says Sept. 11 widow Beverly Eckert, whose husband, Sean Rooney, died in the twin towers. "We want answers."

End Part I