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"Americans will see how incompetency and bureaucracy made September 11 an inevitability."
 Amidst chilling new reports of future terror attacks and the shocking revelations that the Bush administration may have had solid pre-9-11 evidence that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terror network were planning a major act, Washington DC finds itself obsessively, almost gleefully, indulging in one of its favorite pastimes: cultivating a juicy new scandal. At the center of this latest Beltway bombshell is one question: how much did President George W. Bush know about the attacks beforehand. Sounds simple enough, but this latest scandal cannot be summed up in one simple question, it cannot be blamed on one man. In this case it was was a massive failure of our country’s intelligence agencies, namely the FBI, that is at the root of this latest hub-bub. With or without an investigation, it’s become clear that communication and intelligence breakdowns in the Bush administration led to the worst tragedy of our time.
But will America really get the whole truth regarding this latest Washington disclosure? Republicans and Bush himself are against the type of independent inquiry Democrats are howling for, citing national security. Vice President Dick Cheney, for instance, repeated the objection Wednesday in an interview with CNN, saying that such a panel would leak intelligence secrets and undercut U.S. efforts to prevent future attacks. It was also Cheney, who, suggested recently that questioning the Bush administration’s handling of the 9-11 affair as “unpatriotic”. Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) said recently, “If we have a public commission, all of it will be there for our enemies to see.” And while some of this may be true, that we are in a time of war and some disclosures of classified information may not be desirable for the world to see, the world, especially the families of the 9-11 victims, are entitled to the truth. How we get that truth is out of the public's hands, but there is nothing unpatriotic in demanding an investigation. These are, of course, the same Republicans who were calling for the head of Bill Clinton four years ago.
But this is no Lewinskygate here. This is no sexy, sordid, tabloid style story of one man’s dalliances and it’s consequences. This is September 11 we are talking about. Ten months later the wounds are still fresh, and the images burned into the American collective on that fateful day will never be erased. It is still a sensitive subject for many and as such should be treated with some sensitivity. But looking beyond the search for the truth, Americans should also be reserved the right to be plenty angry about Democrats and Republicans turning the tragedy of September 11 into the inevitable political affair. Both parties should be ashamed of themselves for the partisan catfight that has seen Republicans shielding the President in a cloak of secrecy named patriotism and Democrats for circling the administration like a pack of hungry dogs. Americans should also be angry at the blithe, cavalier manner in which the entire administration treated the warning signs that American planes were being targeted for hijacking and reports that Arab students were learning how to fly planes without showing any interest in learning how to take off or land those planes. You need not be J. Edgar Hoover to connect the dots here.
It is to be hoped that if we've learned anything from this latest affair we've simply gained better insight into our intelligence gathering abilities and that the competition that has existed for years between the FBI, CIA and justice department comes to an end and these departments learn to get along like one big, happy family. But this being Washington in the new age of secrets that prospect doesn’t look particularly rosy. Look no further than the Enron scandal to witness how the Bush administration determines what the public can and cannot know.
As we progress deeper into the inevitable congressional investigations and the many layers of this scandal are revealed, Americans will see how incompetency and bureaucracy made September 11 an inevitability. To instantly focus blame on Bush himself is a knee jerk reaction. But it is evident that the administration has major problems at a time when further terrorist attacks are sure to come. But as Americans, we demand accountability. We need the facts but we also need someone to blame. And Democrats, foaming at the mouth for an independent inquiry, are going to make sure we get one.
"Washington DC finds itself obsessively, almost gleefully, indulging in one of its favorite pastimes: cultivating a juicy new scandal."
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