http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason...omm/index.html -- Might
require watching a 30 second add

extract

April 16, 2004 | Bitter denunciations of the 9/11 commission suddenly
flashed across the right-wing mediascape this week, marking the commencement
of a Republican campaign to discredit the independent investigation of the
terrorist attacks. With hindsight -- to quote a phrase often uttered by the
commission's beleaguered witnesses -- the savaging of the investigative
panel seems entirely predictable. All this is just another stage in the
continuing conflict between the commission, whose bipartisan members seem
genuinely interested in unearthing relevant facts despite their occasional
quarreling, and the White House, which has concealed facts and stonewalled
questions whenever possible.

Back when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney conducted their first preemptive
strikes against the commission's very existence, they clearly anticipated
serious problems should an independent body get its hands on pre-9/11
intelligence. Whatever they may have expected, the reality has been worse.
From the damaging revelations by Richard Clarke and other former officials
to the breaching of the secrecy of the President's Daily Briefing to the
humiliating flip-flop on Condoleezza Rice's testimony, the commission's
proceedings have repeatedly embarrassed the White House. Now its friends in
Congress and the media are striking back in anger.

Spearheading the assault was Attorney General John Ashcroft, who determined
before testifying that taking the offensive was the only strategy that might
save him from sounding totally defensive. He was painfully aware, in the
days before his appearance, that the commission's staff had collected
copious evidence showing his neglect of counterterrorism issues during the
administration's first nine months. Thomas Pickard, the former acting
director of the FBI, had told the commission that in 2001, Ashcroft omitted
terrorism from the Justice Department's top priorities, rebuffed his pleas
for increased counter-terror funding and directed Pickard to cease briefing
him on terrorist threats.