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Barriers to inquiry { September 19 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36615-2002Sep18.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36615-2002Sep18.html
Barriers To 9/11 Inquiry Decried
Congress May Push Commission
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 19, 2002; Page A14
Lawmakers from both parties yesterday protested the Bush administration's lack of cooperation in the congressional inquiry into Sept. 11 intelligence failures and threatened to renew efforts to establish an independent commission.
The White House reacted to the complaints from members of the House and Senate intelligence committees by softening its objection to an independent commission. But the president's spokesman said such an independent probe should be "separate and apart from intelligence" -- a concession unlikely to satisfy lawmakers because it does not address the heart of their objections.
On the day a joint House and Senate intelligence committee released a staff report on the Sept. 11 failures and began to hold hearings, those involved in the congressional investigation said they had been thwarted by the administration's reluctance to share information about what the White House knew before last year's terrorist attacks.
"Are we getting the cooperation we need? Absolutely not," Sen. Richard C. Shelby (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence committee, said in a joint appearance with Chairman Bob Graham (D-Fla.) on NBC's "Today" show.
Graham added: "What we're trying to do is to get people who had hands on these issues. . . . And what we're being told is, no, they don't want to make those kind of witnesses available."
Both Graham and Shelby yesterday endorsed the idea of independent panels. In his remarks at the start of the hearings, Shelby warned that "there may come a day very soon when it will become apparent that ours must be only a prelude to further inquiries."
Eleanor Hill, the joint committee's staff director, said in her 30-page statement to the committee that CIA Director George J. Tenet would not declassify "any references to the intelligence community providing information to the president or the White House." Hill also said Tenet would not declassify the identity of or information about a key al Qaeda leader involved in the attacks.
"According to [Tenet], the president's knowledge of intelligence information relevant to this inquiry remains classified even when the substance of that intelligence information has been declassified," Hill testified. She added that "the American public has a compelling interest in this information and that public disclosure would not harm national security."
In a press briefing yesterday morning, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said that after Congress finishes the current investigation, "we'll take a look at talking to Congress about whether or not there is anything additional that goes to the broader areas if necessary." But Fleischer added that such a probe would be "a discussion about broader issues related to 9/11 separate and apart from intelligence."
The White House had previously opposed any independent effort to examine events that led to Sept. 11, arguing that such a probe could increase leaks and compromise intelligence. The FBI is investigating the intelligence committees after administration complaints about leaks to the news media, but the committees say the leaks generally come from the administration.
On Tuesday, Senate Governmental Affairs committee Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) said he has growing support for his effort to create an independent commission. Lieberman, who has been working on the proposal with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said he may attach legislation creating a commission to a bill creating the new Department of Homeland Security. "I have had very encouraging conversations with Senators Graham and Shelby . . . who first were a bit skeptical about this idea early on in the year," Lieberman said. "I think now they're both ready to support it."
Shelby acknowledged that the congressional probe would be incomplete. "I'm afraid if we try to publish at the end of this session a definitive paper on what we found, that there will be some things that we don't know because we hadn't had time to probe them and we have not had enough cooperation," he said.
Staff writer Dana Priest contributed to this report.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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