The Big Question
 

With all of the money and resources that have been poured into Homeland Security, with two wars being fought in an effort to crush the networks of those who are accused of attacking us, with the establishment of the cabinet level Department of Homeland Security and it's 162,000 employees, and with the abolishment of our Constitutional rights through the Patriot Act, are we any safer now than we were at the end of the summer of 2001?

Even with all of the money and the blood of our troops being spent on finding "who" committed the 9/11 attacks on America, we cannot be safe until we find out "how" it was committed. How do we strengthen our defenses when we don't know where our weaknesses lie? The question that remains unanswered, the most important question, the question on everyone's mind, is still, "How could this have happened?" The lack of curiosity in the White House is astonishing and should be a matter of grave concern to every American. Actions have been taken, policies have been formed, legislation has been enacted, all to protect us, without knowing how we were vulnerable. No one has been fired for not performing their duties. Are we to assume that we did everything right and were still able to be attacked? Until we answer that most basic question, everything that's been done in the name of security is meaningless.

One troubling aspect can be found in a 2000 paper, "Rebuilding America's Defenses", put out by the PNAC, whose members fill this administration, including Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and I. Lewis Libby. That document called for American world hegemony through a policy of pre-emptive strikes including a specific strike on Iraq whether or not Saddam Hussein was still in power. It also stated that it would be difficult to convince the American people to support that policy without some cataclysmic event like the attack on Pearl Harbor.

This administration blocked an investigation for two years. One would think that the biggest attack on American soil would be a priority and every effort would be made to get to the bottom of how it was accomplished and by whom. We were told it was Osama binLaden and his terror group Al-Qaida and we accepted that unquestioningly. The group however, never took credit for the attack and shortly after 9/11, binLaden gave an interview to a Pakistani publication denying any connection to it.

Even now, when the families of the victims of 9/11 have finally pressured the Bush administration into giving them answers to questions about how this horrific event could have happened and who knew what when, the administration has continued to make only a half-hearted attempt to cooperate, refusing to turn over all pertinent papers to the commission finally formed to investigate it. The commission itself can hardly be called non-partisan. Its Executive Director is Philip Zelikow. He worked for Condoleeza Rice in the first Bush administration, also co-authored a book in 1995, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed with Ms. Rice, Bush's current National Security Advisor and worked on the Bush-Cheney transition team advising her on the incoming National Security Council. Zelikow gave testimony to the commission and came under attack by relatives of the 9/11 victims for what certainly appears to be a conflict of interest. Zelikow recused himself from those parts of the investigation dealing with the transition. That still leaves he fact that he was on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board since October 2001, only resigning after signing the contract to direct this commission. He also remains in touch with Karl Rove, the President's senior advisor and the man Washington insiders and others feel is the most powerful figure in the Bush administration. All of these factors lead many to doubt that any real answers to the questions surrounding 9/11 will be found, at least not by this commission and not while the White House continues to keep information about the event shrouded in secrecy.

It may be admirable for Mr. Bush to tell us that his first job is to keep Americans safe but the obvious may be escaping him. You can't prevent something from happening again if you don't know how it happened the first time. If he knows, his first job should be to fill in the rest of us.

1-15-04