CIA Chiefs Quash Revealing Report Pointing Fingers For September 11
Detailed CIA report is ordered to be kept secret for fear that ‘prying eyes’ may uncover truth
By Greg Szymanski
An internal CIA report, naming individuals who may have been responsible for intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, has been kept secret despite public outcries and congressional demands to release the incriminating evidence. The delays began last July on orders from CIA’s acting director, John McLaughlin, and have continued since Porter Goss took charge last September. Critics claim President George W. Bush has personally directed Goss, a Republican partisan, to keep the names from “prying eyes” in order to hide the truth exposing either government incompetence or outright complicity.
Ever since 9-11, the public has called for government accountability, but the Bush administration has been trying to block truth-seeking efforts at every corner. The lack of government cooperation began with obstructing justice at ground zero by FEMA’s quick removal of hard evidence and continues now by keeping the CIA report secret.
In between, critics have compiled a laundry list of government cover-ups concerning 9-11, but answers have been slow in coming due to a complacent media and lack of government cooperation. The public clamor still remains hidden on cyberspace conspiracy web sites and in alternative publications, but recently two federal lawsuits surfaced, one concerning FBI whistleblower, Sybil Edmonds, and the other a RICO conspiracy action filed against Bush and 56 other defendants.
The Edmonds lawsuit has been dismissed by a partisan federal judge appointed by Bush, and the RICO action is still in the pretrial discovery stage.
“We are in the process of serving all the defendants, including President Bush, his father and many others. It’s not going to be easy; expect a long hard fight,” said Phillip Berg, the attorney who filed the federal action on behalf of William Rodriguez, a World Trade Center maintenance worker who claims to have evidence showing government complicity.
Besides the two lawsuits, a citizens petition has also been handed over to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer last November, demanding criminal action be taken against Bush and his cronies for complicity in 9-11.
An official spokesman for the attorney general’s office said no action on the petition has been taken.
And regarding the recent CIA internal report kept secret from congressional leaders and the public, this week a CIA spokesman would not comment about the status of the report or when it would be released.
To date the names in the report remain unknown. They were compiled by the CIA’s inspector general, who began an independent investigation in December 2002 after a joint 9-11 congressional task force sought answers for obvious intelligence irregularities surrounding the attacks.
The purpose of the report was to get the bottom of the intelligence breakdowns and to determine who should be held accountable for mistakes made. To date no one has been publicly held accountable or even reprimanded openly for obvious intelligence breakdowns.
Further, the CIA has not provided a reason for its reluctance to turn over the report, even after a letter was directly sent by top House leaders on the Intelligence Committee to former director McLaughlin, demanding accountability.
The letter, sent last September, has not been made public and has essentially been ignored by CIA officials.
Last October, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va), personally asked Goss to turn over names in the report, but his demand has also been ignored by the CIA.
Members of Congress expressed concern over the CIA’s failure to cooperate, saying it was a “definite departure from normal procedure.” House and Senate members are expected to further prod the CIA in turning over the sensitive report when the 109th Congress convenes.
This time help is expected to come from an outspoken critic, Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), who returns to the House after being ousted two years ago.
McKinney is one of the few elected officials who publicly claimed the Bush administration had prior knowledge of the events leading up to 9-11, saying the administration allowed the events to occur in order to reap huge profits from the invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Political insiders claim McKinney, who was the first black woman ever elected to Congress from Georgia in 1992, was then targeted by the GOP for defeat in 2002 due to her anti-administration public expressions.
McKinney recently won re-election and is expected to fight hard for those involved in the 9-11 truth movement despite its unpopularity on Capitol Hill.
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http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/cia_chiefs_quash.html October 28, 2004
9/11 report left out CIA investigation of intelligence failures
By Chris Strohm
cstrohm@govexec.com
Key staff members of the 9/11 Commission left an internal CIA review of intelligence failures leading up to the attacks out its final report, the former executive director of the commission said Thursday.
The staffers made an agreement with the CIA's inspector general to not cite the internal investigation in the commission's final report, which was issued in July, Philip Zelikow told Government Executive. Zelikow led the 9/11 Commission staff until the body ended its work in August.
The Los Angeles Times reported Oct. 19 that a report on the internal CIA investigation has been stalled within the agency since June. The investigation was conducted to determine whether individual CIA officers should be held accountable for intelligence failures leading up to the attacks. The joint congressional committee that investigated intelligence failures related to the attacks requested the investigation in December 2002.
According to the Times, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., and ranking member Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., sent a letter to the CIA in early October asking for the report to be released. The legislators are also key members of the conference committee meeting to craft a final bill on intelligence reform.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1004/102804c1.htmJanuary 7, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A report from the CIA's independent investigator is expected to conclude officials at the highest level of the agency are to blame for pre-September 11 intelligence lapses.
The report by the CIA's inspector general, John Helgerson, which is nearly complete, concludes that senior leaders should be held accountable for failing to provide adequate resources for combating terrorism, the New York Times reports in its Friday editions.
Among those who receive the most pointed criticism in a draft version are former CIA Director George Tenet and former Deputy Director of Operations Jim Pavitt, both of whom resigned last summer, the newspaper said. The report quoted current and former intelligence officials.
The report has been reviewed by select government officials. A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the investigation.
A former intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that Tenet has reviewed a small portion of the report and was given an opportunity to respond. The official said the report discusses accountability for the attacks of September 11, 2001 -- primarily based on the inspector general's review of a joint House-Senate inquiry into the attacks.
http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:GEG--PKEhTYJ:www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/07/cia.report.ap/+cia+inspector+general%27s+9-11+report&hl=en&start=3
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