9/11 Commission

Richard Clarke’s 9/11 imagery hypocrisy

I read where Richard Clarke found it “disturbing” that “imagery and the memory of 9/11” were used in an advertisement about why the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay should be kept open. Those 26 House Republicans stated what they believe, that keeping terrorists out of the U.S. is good policy; they were not personally profiting from 9/11.

When Richard Clarke testified before the 9/11 Commission, John Lehman stated that Clarke had previously told one thing to Commissioners in private and something different during his public testimony. Clarke repeatedly mentioned September 11 in his two books and his publisher reportedly rushed his first book to print so that it would be released soon after the Commission Report was issued it would coincide with his testimony. Mr. Clarke currently works for “the left-leaning National Security Network.” You be the judge.

Update, May 12, 2009: Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger is on the Advisory Board for the National Security Network. In 2006, he pled guilty to stealing classified materials from the National Archives “while the Clinton administration’s designated liaison to the Sept. 11 commission.” Glad to see Sandy found friends with similar interests after he was forced to resign from the Kerry campaign.

DOJ stalling release of 9/11 Commission ‘Wall’ documents

The Honorable Bill Shuster
United States House of Representatives
Pennsylvania-9th, Republican
204 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515-3809
Phone: (202) 225-2431

Dear Representative Shuster:

On January 15, 2009, I inquired into the new release by the Legislative Archive of 9/11 Commission Report documents and learned of the existence of the Commission’s Staff Monograph about the Wall. My inquiry prompted the Legislative Archive to review the monograph for release. On April 22, 2009, the Legislative Archive verbally informed me that the monograph was releasable and I would “likely have a copy in [my] hands within two weeks.” Yet a memo to me dated April 23, 2009 from the Legislative Archive in part states, “[I]t was determined by the National Archives that the monograph requires official declassification review before it can be released. I will submit the 35-page document to the reviewing agency as a mandatory declassification review request in your name tomorrow.” [1]

A person who had reviewed the staff monograph subsequently stated to me, “While it contains only a brief passage that might be considered sensitive in nature, the mechanics of information sharing, expect the DOJ to heavily redact it.” They added, “When Jamie Gorelick hears the monograph’s release has been held up, she will be furious.” They were not the first with knowledge of the monograph to describe it in those terms, albeit no one has disclosed to me its actual classified contents.

Those events and statements, coupled with previously released government documents, indicates to me that contrary to the 9/11 Commission’s founding principles and Executive Order 12958, political considerations motivated the DOJ to order – 4 ½ years after the Commission ended its work – an official declassification review of the monograph and to delay the release of eight related memorandums for record (MFRs).