Bush Appointee Obstructed, Sabotaged 9/11 Report

Fri Aug 12th, 2005 at 13:41:39 PDT

The staff director of the 9/11 Commission suppressed information that two U.S. intelligence agencies had detected the 9/11 hijackers inside the U.S. eighteen months before the attacks, withheld notification from the FBI, and obstructed Bureau investigators searching for al-Qaeda terrorist cells.

In recent days, we've learned that Philip D. Zelikow, Bush's appointee as Staff Director on the 9/11 Commission, withheld information from the Commissioners that detailed secret Pentagon surveillance of the al-Qaeda hijackers.

While Staff Director, Zelikow was also allowed to read sections of the still-unreleased CIA Inspector General's report that reportedly criticizes high Agency officials for failing to pass on information to the FBI after the CIA learned of the entry into the U.S. of several of the 9/11 hijackers on early 2000. According to a report in Government Executive magazine, Zelikow cut a deal with the CIA that withheld that information from the Commission report, as well.