Hopefully the commission's findings will be coming back to haunt the
current administration.
larry
On Wed, 7 Jul 2004 09:38:43 -0600, dana tierney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> so they have seen his evidence and they don't believe it, huh.
>
> Dana
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Larry C. Lyons <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 08:20:31 -0400
> Subject: 9/11 Commission to Cheney - You're still wrong.
> To: CF-Community <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> From this morning's Washington Post:
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32309-2004Jul6.html
>
> 9/11 Panel Defends Intelligence
> Commissioners Had Access to Same Sources as Cheney
>
> By Dan Eggen
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Wednesday, July 7, 2004; Page A02
>
> The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks said
> yesterday that it has had access to the same information on alleged
> ties between al Qaeda and Iraq as Vice President Cheney, who suggested
> last month that the panel may not have been privy to all available
> intelligence when it found limited links between the two.
>
> The one-sentence statement, issued by Chairman Thomas H. Kean (R) and
> Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D), continues the debate over the
> findings on Iraq by the Sept. 11 commission, which issued a report
> last month concluding that Iraq and al Qaeda had limited contacts but
> had not developed a "collaborative relationship."
>
> A day later, in a June 17 television interview, Cheney said he
> believed there was a "general relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda
> and said he "probably" had information that the commission had not
> seen. Commission officials asked the administration to give the panel
> any additional evidence, but they have said since that none has been
> provided.
>
> "After examining available transcripts of the Vice President's public
> remarks, the 9-11 Commission believes it has access to the same
> information the Vice President has seen regarding contacts between al
> Qaeda and Iraq prior to the 9-11 attacks," Kean and Hamilton said in
> their statement yesterday.
>
> Cheney spokesman Kevin Kellems said the vice president welcomed the
> commission's statement because it "puts to rest a non-story."
>
> "As we've said all along, the administration provided the commission
> with unprecedented access to sensitive information so they could
> perform their mission," Kellems said. "The vice president critiqued
> some press coverage of the staff report. He did not criticize the
> commission's work."
>
> Several commission officials did not return calls for comment yesterday.
>
> Although the commission did not provide more details, the statement
> suggests that it will stand by its assessment of the relationship
> between Hussein's government and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in
> its final report, which is due to be completed by July 26. The
> findings initially prompted some squabbling between Democratic and
> Republican commissioners, but one panel official said recently that
> "everyone is on the same page" after a detailed briefing by commission
> staff two weeks ago.
>
> In two interim reports issued last month, the commission's
> investigators said that they found "no credible evidence" that Iraq
> and al Qaeda had cooperated in attacks on the United States and that a
> purported April 9, 2001, meeting between an Iraqi intelligence officer
> and Mohamed Atta, leader of the terrorist hijackers, never occurred.
>
> The panel said that the FBI placed Atta in Virginia on April 4 through
> a bank surveillance video and that records show calls were made from
> the hijacker's cell phone in Florida on April 6, 9, 10 and 11. There
> is also "no evidence that Atta ventured overseas again or re-entered
> the United States before July, when he traveled to Spain and back
> under his true name," one of the reports said.
>
> Cheney, who previously had said that the alleged meeting was "pretty
> well confirmed," said during the June 17 interview on CNBC that "we
> just don't know" whether it happened.
>
> "We have never been able to confirm that, nor have we been able to
> knock it down," Cheney said.
>
> � 2004 The Washington Post Company
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