ASHINGTON, Nov. 13 — The commission investigating the
Sept. 11 terror attacks said on Thursday that its deal with the White
House for access to highly classified Oval Office intelligence reports
would let the White House edit the documents before they were released to
the commission's representatives.
The agreement, announced on Wednesday, has led to the first public
split on the commission. Two Democrats on the 10-member panel say that the
commission should have demanded full access to the intelligence summaries,
known as the President's Daily Brief, and that the White House should not
be allowed to determine what is relevant to the investigation.
An umbrella group of victims' families joined the criticism, saying the
terms of the accord should be public.
While spokesmen for panel refused again to provide the terms, citing
the sensitivity of the talks with the White House, its executive director
acknowledged that the White House would be able to remove information from
the reports unrelated to Al Qaeda and to the attacks on Sept. 11,
2001.
"An entire P.D.B. will have articles about China, South Africa,
Venezuela," the executive director, Philip D. Zelikow, said in an
interview. "The notion that the commission should want to read P.D.B.
articles that have nothing to do with Al Qaeda would be a novel
suggestion. The commission has not asked to see the country's most
sensitive intelligence information on China or North Korea."
A Democrat on the panel who has criticized the accord, former
Representative Timothy J. Roemer of Indiana, said in an interview that he
believed that the panel had agreed to terms that would let the White House
edit the reports to remove the contexts in which the intelligence was
presented and to hide any "smoking guns."
"The President's Daily Brief can run 9 to 12 pages long," Mr. Roemer
said. "But under this agreement, the commission will be allowed to see
only specific articles or paragraphs within the P.D.B.'s. Our members may
see only two or three paragraphs out of a nine-page report."
He said the commission should have insisted on access to the full
reports, because "you need the context of how the P.D.B. was presented to
the president in order to determine whether or not there were smoking
guns."
The other Democratic critic on the panel, former Senator Max Cleland of
Georgia, has described the agreement as unconscionable.
Administration officials have acknowledged that they are concerned that
intelligence reports received by Mr. Bush in the weeks before 9/11 might
be construed to suggest that the White House failed to respond to evidence
suggesting that Al Qaeda was planning a catastrophic attack. The White
House acknowledged last year in response to news reports that a copy of
the Daily Brief in August 2001 noted that Al Qaeda might use hijacked
planes in an attack.
Commission officials have said that under the agreement the panel will
be able to designate four members to read the reports. They will be
allowed to take notes on the documents, and the White House will be
allowed to review and edit the notes to remove especially sensitive
information.
In its statement, the victims' family group, the Family Steering
Committee, said the agreement would "prevent a full uncovering of the
truth and is unacceptable." The group is led by many advocates who were
most responsible for pressuring Congress to create the commission last
year over the initial objections of the White House.
"As it now stands, a limited number of commissioners will have
restricted access to a limited number of P.D.B. documents," the group
said. "The commission should issue a statement to the American public
fully explaining why this agreement was chosen in lieu of issuing
subpoenas to the C.I.A. and executive branch."
The group said, "All 10 commissioners should have full, unfettered and
unrestricted access to all evidence, including but not limited to all
Presidential Daily Briefings."
A spokesman for the group, Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband, Ronald,
was killed at the World Trade Center, said the families were alarmed that
the terms of the accord were kept secret.
`'I think this entire deal needs to be explained to the public," Ms.
Breitweiser said. "This is an independent commission that is supposed to
be transparent, that is supposed to be open."
