Of course, this stonewalling is an outrage, but still a lesser outrage than the
Corporatist media's refusal to deliver the story with
appropriate import and context. NEVERTHELESS, the
woods are relentlessly inching closer to MacBush's
castle walls...
"A federal commission investigating the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has been unable to obtain classified White House documents, and is now considering issuing subpoenas for them, a commission spokesman said."
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/10/26/attacks.commission/index.html
9/11 commission considering White House subpoenas
Sunday, October 26, 2003 Posted: 1:13 PM EST (1813
GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A federal commission investigating
the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has been
unable to obtain classified White House documents, and
is now considering issuing subpoenas for them, a
commission spokesman said.
"It's not a means that you want to use lightly or
overuse," Al Felzenberg, spokesman for the National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United
States, said. "It is an instrument we have at our
disposal."
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The New York Times reported Saturday that the
commission's chairman, Thomas Kean, was prepared to
subpoena the White House to get access to several
highly classified intelligence documents that so far
have not been turned over.
White House spokesman Jimmy Orr said the White House
"believes it is being fully cooperative with the
commission."
"We hope to meet all of the panel's demands for
documents," he said.
Felzenberg said there was some impatience on the part
of the commission to get all the necessary documents
because members "take the job seriously" and have a
May deadline to meet.
The 10-member commission, he said, also wants to begin
to have more focused hearings to determine whether
there were intelligence or law enforcement failures in
the months leading up to the attacks that killed
nearly 3,000 people in New York, the Pentagon and
Pennsylvania.
"To have those, we have to get through these piles of
material and to start writing a report that is a
definitive account of the events of 9/11. We need the
evidence. We need the data," he said.
"Both sides are negotiating in good faith, but at some
point there needs to be an end to negotiations about
process and a focus on progress," Felzenberg added.
He acknowledged that issuing subpoenas may not result
in a more rapid release of the documents, and said
commission members have not decided whether to issue
them.
"They have not reached that decision now," Felzenberg
said. "Negotiations are in their final stage and we
hope they're resolved quickly."
"We hope that we get access to the material we need in
a very timely manner."
He said Kean, the former governor of New Jersey,
"wants this resolved because he wants to get on to
substantive issues, not procedural issues."
In the past several months, the commission has
complained that several federal agencies were slow in
turning over requested documents.
The law that created the commission last fall mandates
nine areas of inquiry, including terrorist financing
and aviation security.
A congressional investigation into the attacks has
largely explored possible counterterrorism lapses,
such as the CIA and FBI failing to share information
or to "connect the dots" between bits of intelligence
obtained from monitoring al Qaeda.