Saturday, September 21, 2002

Added two "must visits" to Favorite Links: Cursor.org and Daily Howler

Are you a Florida resident? Please, please,
join the good fight to get Jeb out of the governor's mansion and The Pretender out of the White House.

An excellent, and pointed, article in The Nation's Capital Games:
Bush Stonewalls on Pre-9/11 Knowledge. Read it in its entirety and weep. From the article:


"The Director of Central Intelligence," the relevant passage says, "has declined to declassify two issues of particular importance to this Inquiry." One was the identity of a key al Qaeda leader (since identified by the news media as Khalid Sheik Mohammed). The other was "any references to the Intelligence Community providing information to the President or White House." The report went on, "According to the DCI, the President's knowledge of intelligence information relevant to this Inquiry remains classified even when the substance of that intelligence information has been declassified."

That is, the administration will declassify intelligence information, but it will keep classified the fact that this material was (or was not) shared with the President or anyone else at the White House. The administration's position is that it can tell the public about intelligence reports the government gathered regarding potential acts of terrorism before September 11 without harming national security, but if it must reveal whether these reports were brought to the attention of George W. Bush or his aides, that would endanger the United States. (This is different from the customary Bush White House arguments about executive privilege and preserving Bush's and Dick Cheney's ability to hear frank talk from such crucial advisers as energy industry lobbyists.)


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