Ugh.

Looks like I had some good reason for being concerned yesterday about possible "trickiness" on the part of the White House with regards to their agreement to give the 9/11 comission access to the documents they need. It's not nearly as straight-forward as I initially thought.

The compromise will allow the 10-member commission to create a four-person subcommittee that will have varying degrees of access to the documents known as Presidential Daily Briefs from the Bush and Clinton administrations, according to a commission statement and sources familiar with the agreement.

But the accord also includes restrictions limiting what parts of the briefings can be seen and what parts can later be shared with the rest of the bipartisan panel, and it includes White House review of much of that information, sources familiar with the agreement said. Those with direct access will take notes, and those notes are subject to review by the White House before being shared with others, sources said.

The White House should just simply let the commissioners have access to the information, not go though some kind of dog-and-pony show hoop jumping just to get to have a few of them look at "parts" of the briefings, with further reviews and restrictions on what information can then be shared with other commissioners. Yes, I know there are security concerns, but there should also be security concerns regarding how the administration let the 9/11 attacks happen. The only way anyone can understand for sure what happened is if the investigators are allowed to know what the decision-makeers knew prior to and on that day. Otherwise, they're just making guesses in the dark, and that isn't going to do a whole lot to protect the country in the long run.

Posted by thorswitch at November 13, 2003 05:46 PM | TrackBack