Bush fought like hell to keep a 9/11 probe from being public then failing that, worked to limit it in resources, money and time. Here's some of the reasons why from the "classified" Congressional investigation (committed in secret) which is separate from the current public investigation. The bottom line is that Bush is an incompetent leader. He dumped the three-year Hart-Rudman Commission's BIPARTISAN report on national security (which outlined Islamic Fundamentalist terrorism and how to prepare for it) when its results were given to him saying Cheney was in charge of such but everyone knows Cheney was holding "secret" court with the energy lobbyists and owners at that time to subvert our nation's energy policies. There is no leadership nor responsibility in this White House. Time to take a broom and sweep it clean (if its possible to remove such a stain).

washingtonpost.com

White House, CIA Kept Key Portions of Report Classified

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 25, 2003; Page A01

President Bush was warned in a more specific way than previously known about intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda terrorists were seeking to attack the United States, a report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks indicated yesterday. Separately, the report cited one CIA memo that concluded there was "incontrovertible evidence" that Saudi individuals provided financial assistance to al Qaeda operatives in the United States.

These revelations are not the subject of the congressional report's narratives or findings, but are among the nuggets embedded in a story focused largely on the mid-level workings of the CIA, FBI and U.S. military.

Two intriguing -- and politically volatile -- questions surrounding the Sept. 11 plot have been how personally engaged Bush and his predecessor were in counterterrorism before the attacks, and what role some Saudi officials may have played in sustaining the 19 terrorists who commandeered four airplanes and flew three of them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

To varying degrees, the answers remain a mystery, despite an unprecedented seven-month effort by a joint House and Senate panel to fully understand how a group of Arab terrorists could have pulled off such a scheme. The CIA refused to permit publication of information potentially implicating Saudi officials on national security grounds, arguing that disclosure could upset relations with a key U.S. ally. Lawmakers complained it was merely to avoid embarrassment.

The White House, meanwhile, resisted efforts to pin down Bush's knowledge of al Qaeda threats and to catalogue the executive's pre-Sept. 11 strategy to fight terrorists. It was justified largely on legal grounds, but Democrats said the secrecy was meant to protect Bush from criticism...





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