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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Take a minute to DEMAND the investigations |
Current rating: 0 |
by a3m posting
(No verified email address) |
24 May 2002
Modified: 25 May 2002 |
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The below Democratic link, will enable you to send a message to Bush and Congressional leadership DEMANDING a full external investigation of the events leading up to 9-11, just as Senate leader Tom Dascle has done. He needs some back up on this. It'll only take a second, and then you can pass it on to all you know, and urge them to do the same. |
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PLEASE, pass this link to everyone you can, every network, every bulletin board, whereever, so that America can get the 9-11 inquiry it deserves. URGE everyone to urge everyone they know to pass this below link on and on, and to send a message yourself before passing it on. |
See also:
www.democrats.org/action/200205220001.ht...
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Skeptical |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
25 May 2002
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I wish I could be more encouraging, but I'm skeptical that allowing the same people who have consistently failed in their oversight duties of the intelligence services will produce much in the way of results or insight. The only really probing investigation of the intelliegence services was the Church Commision investigation of the CIA in 1975; after that, the intelligence services vowed to never again allow such a probing look at their dirty laundry. We certainly didn't see much in the way of results during Iran-contra. And we shouldn't forget that George Tenet is a Democratic appointee holdover from the Clinton administration.
This excerpt from the Secrecy News e-mail bulletin illustrates the problem:
THE LIMITS OF INTELLIGENCE OVERSIGHT
The perennial question of intelligence budget disclosure provides a key to comprehending the limits of intelligence oversight, since the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees both supported budget disclosure before assuming their chairmanship, but have actively or passively opposed it thereafter.
Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, voted in favor of annual disclosure of the intelligence budget total the last time the proposal came before the Senate on June 19, 1997. But now that he is in a position to actually do something about it, he has been silent.
Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, endorsed the unanimous recommendation of the 1996 Aspin-Brown-Rudman Commission, of which he was a member, calling for annual disclosure of the intelligence budget appropriation -- as well as the next year's budget request. Ever since then, however, he has resisted any step to implement this recommendation.
The clear implication is that service on the intelligence committees entails a compromise of one's principles and a subordination to one's best judgment to the demands of the intelligence bureaucracy.
For this reason, the committees are probably incapable of conducting a rigorous investigation of the institutional defects that may have contributed to the terrorist attacks of September 11. An outside commission that is not locked in perpetual negotiations with the intelligence agencies would be better positioned for the task.
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.
To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, send email to majordomo (at) lists.fas.org with
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subscribe secrecy_news
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Secrecy News is archived at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html |
