Claims of conspiracies work wonders for a political career. Ask former Representative Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), who lost her 2002 re-election bid at least in part because she raised the possibility of a conspiracy surrounding the tragic events of 11 September 2001. Actually, McKinney’s special order remarks merely questioned the competency of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies:
“Surely before we grant more powers and massive resources to our law enforcement, military and intelligence communities we should be examining why they didn’t detect the threat of these and other attacks. Especially, since we’re being told the attacks last week were sophisticated, involved many people over a considerable period of time and maybe even involved assistance from a foreign government. We knew, or should have known, that Bin Laden was capable of attacking our major cities. Just 7 months ago during the trial of suspects charged with the embassy bombings in Africa federal prosecutors detailed the Bin Laden network in open court….
“I don’t understand how our intelligence services have the ability to penetrate, analyze and publicly distribute records of Bin Laden’s alleged cellular phone traffic in the hours immediately after the bombings and from these conversations we learnt of Bin Laden’s alleged celebrations with supporters. But in stark contrast these same US intelligence services appear to have heard nothing at all of Bin Laden’s planning and preparations of the attacks, or any of the other attacks that we attributed to him, in the months and years prior to September 11th.”
Charges like McKinney’s were—and still are—met with outright disdain at best, with many crossing the bounds of reality and labeling such impolitic questions as treasonous.
But a report published on the MSNBC website this week may lend credence to charges like McKinney’s. In “The Secrets of September 11,” Newsweek reporters Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball claim that the Bush administration is adamant in preventing disclosure of information relating to the 9/11 attack.
Turns out that a congressional inquiry yielded an 800-plus-page report that mostly outlines the failings of the US law enforcement and intelligence communities surrounding the events of 9/11. Isikoff and Hosenball’s piece indicates that a working group of Bush administration intelligence officials “has taken a hard line against further public disclosure.”
It’s unclear if the cover-up is an attempt to avoid political embarrassment or merely a byproduct of the intelligence community’s obsession with secrecy. After watching President Bush last night again attempt to tie the US invasion and occupation of Iraq with its “war on terrorism,” neither explanation is especially palatable.
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