For Sale: The Brooklyn Bridge
 

February 15 2005
Counterbias.com
Marc Krug
 

In April of last year, George Bush claimed, "Had I any inkling whatsoever that people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to save the country.”

This statement is either entirely untrue or its maker is singularly incompetent. Barring the possibility that the 9/11 Commission Report is a complete fabrication, Bush should have had many such inklings.

As the report stated, what was already known before September 11 should have "raised alarms about the growing terrorist threat to civil aviation throughout the 1990s and into the new century."

The Commission also found that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) failed to heed 52 separate warnings received before 9/11 concerning possible terrorist activity. Some of these warnings specifically mentioned that al-Qaeda members might possibly hijack airliners for suicidal flights. Unfortunately, the airlines seemed more concerned with possible passenger delay and inconvenience than they did with safety considerations.

When Bush first learned of these warning failures, he must have felt uncomfortably undecided about what to do next. But by his own standards, he made the right choice. He chose self-protection.

Specifically, Bush chose to “classify” — and thus not publicly release — those sections of the report containing the FAA warnings. And so the public was denied access to them from August 26, 2004 to January 28, 2005. That these sections were deemed essential to understanding just how the civil aviation system failed on September 11, making it possible for the horrors of that day to occur, seemed not to matter at all to Bush.

Bush thought it more important to maintain the fiction that his administration had been taking the terrorist threat seriously before September 11. So for reasons related exclusively to his welfare and that of his inner circle, he wanted these warnings kept secret — even as he was saying that he wanted all information to come out.

Of course, had Bush told the truth and allowed these warnings to become known, he would have jeopardized his re-election. In which case, he was well-served by following the two principles that have guided his political career: always place your self-interest before the public’s right to know; and never let the unvarnished truth escape your lips except under duress.

For Bush, the truth remains something so infinitely pliable that it can be manipulated at will. Throughout his political career, he has said whatever suited his purposes and proved expedient at the moment — regardless of whether it bore any recognizable resemblance to reality.

In addition to regarding the truth as an unanchored commodity, Bush has been obsessed with secrecy. As most seasoned politicians know, secrecy and dishonesty are mutually dependent: without secrecy, lies would be discovered; and without lies, there would be no secrets worth keeping. Bush learned this lesson quite early.

But his penchant for dishonesty and his secretive nature may soon be exposed yet again. On December 10, two members of Congress demanded a full, unredacted copy of the 9/11 Commission Report, one that contains mention of the 52 warnings.

These members — Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) — also called for a congressional hearing. In this hearing, they want to discover whether Bush improperly withheld the 9/11 Commission findings from Congress and the public until after the November elections and the confirmation of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State.

What makes Ms. Rice a consideration is one simple “coincidence.” Although the 9/11 Commission staff completed its report on August 26, 2004, the Bush Administration refused to declassify the findings until January 28, 2005 — less than 48 hours after Ms. Rice had been confirmed as Secretary of State.

Many of us remember Ms. Rice’s White House speech on May 16, 2002: “I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.”

Quite a few people could have made the prediction that an aircraft might eventually be used as a missile, particularly those familiar with intelligence gathered over the last three years. In fact, the CIA knew that terrorists had once considered flying a plane into the Eiffel Tower. Unless she was asleep on the job as National Security Advisor, Rice would be among those capable of making that prediction.

Even so, I am sure that some individuals will believe that Ms. Rice was totally unaware of any of the 52 warnings given the FAA by its security branch before September 11, even though it was job to know such facts.

And I am sure that these same individuals will also believe that the President suppressed the FAA segments of the 9/11 Commission Report solely for reasons of national security, without ever giving any consideration to what effect their release might have on his re-election.

For this select group of individuals, please let me tell you about something quite marvelous that’s been in my family for ages. It’s this magnificent bridge in Brooklyn that I would be willing to sell for a mere fraction of its worth.

---