Bush is holding back
COMMENTARY
By Josh Deitz

The fall television season has just begun, but the White House is already in reruns.

In the last few years, the White House has relentlessly stonewalled requests by congressional investigators for information on the makeup of the energy advisory committee put together by Dick Cheney. Unfortunately for everyone interested in open and transparent government, the administration won that round.

Now the White House is being accused of failing to release critical information on the Sept. 11 attacks. The independent commission created by Congress to investigate the attacks has a May 2004 deadline to produce a report. Without the information the commission has requested from the White House, it will be impossible to meet that deadline and the American people will be cheated out of a full investigation of the attacks.

This is not a Democratic assault on the president. Both Republicans and Democrats on the council have criticized the Bush administration for refusing to turn over crucial information. The chairman of the commission is Thomas H. Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey. One of the chief critics of the refusal to hand over evidence is Chuck Hagel, a Republican Congressman from Nebraska.

The commission has already had to issue a subpoena to acquire evidence from the Federal Aviation Administration. Now it looks like the commission will have to issue subpoenas to a number of federal
agencies that are not complying with the commission. It is a disgrace that the White House is on this list. It’s hard not to speculate on why the White House is refusing to turn over the materials the commission is requesting. Is there information that will embarrass President Bush on the eve of an election year? Did the White House ignore critical information leading up to the attacks? These are questions that must be answered. The commission was created specifically to report on these matters.

One of the chief criticisms of the Bush administration’s policy has been its complete refusal to consider the information our intelligence agencies have provided. When there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the administration invented its own. The exact same thing happened with the misinformation connecting Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda.

With a presidential election coming up, we need to know whether our president is capable of leading the nation. So far, the administration has failed to find Osama bin Laden, failed to find Saddam Hussein and failed to stabilize either Afghanistan or Iraq. Meanwhile, terrorist networks around the world are regrouping.

If the Sept. 11 attacks were the result of a failure of the Bush administration, the American people need to know. If the commission investigating the attacks has to subpoena the White House for evidence, Americans will have proof that President Bush should be kicked out of office as soon as possible.

Josh Deitz is a senior political science major from Atlanta, Ga.