" There Will Be No Patrick Fitzgerald for the 9/11 Attacks"

[reprehensor]

There Will Be No Patrick Fitzgerald for the 9/11 Attacks

by James Ridgeway

Members of the 9/11 Commission made news this week by including serious criticisms of the Bush Administration in their latest "progress report." At a public forum on November 14, former 9/11 Commissioners chastised the White House for failing to implement recommendations aimed at preventing another terrorist attack, made some 16 months ago in the 9/11 Commission Report. They also pointed to new problems -- including the mistreatment of detainees, which they say might aid in terrorist recruitment. “The flames of extremism undoubtedly burn more brightly when we are the ones who deliver the gasoline,” said Commission member Richard Ben-Veniste.

Such criticisms may seem relatively tame, but they sound quite tough-minded compared with the careful, timid statements made by the 9/11 Commission in its July 2004 report. Were the Commissioners, along with most of the media, waiting for the President’s approval ratings to drop before jumping on the anti-Bush bandwagon? Or are they only able to show some moxie when they no longer have any real power to influence the political life of the nation?

Perhaps it should come as little surprise that the 2004 9/11 Commission Report failed to assign any real blame or demand any real accountability for the terrorist attacks. After all, the formation of the Commission itself was more or less a political accommodation, taken up reluctantly and only after the tireless lobbying by the families of 9/11 victims. And the chosen Commissioners, both Republicans and Democrats, were political insiders, unlikely to ask questions that might seriously threaten the White House or any other political or economic institution.

In the area of intelligence failures, for example, the Commission's mandate was to carry forward the investigations already launched by the Joint Inquiry of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, chaired by former Florida Senator Bob Graham. But the Commission failed to act on several potentially explosive findings made by Graham and his staff.

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