Posted on 01/30/2004 8:06:25 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
The two key Senate authors of the bill that created an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks said Thursday that they would introduce legislation next week to extend the panel's deadline by eight months, to next January. The senators, John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, said they were prepared to fight for the extension over the opposition of the White House and Congressional Republicans. Both want the 10-member commission to meet its original deadline of May 27. "An extension until after the November elections is warranted to ensure a comprehensive and thorough investigation in a nonpartisan environment," Senator McCain said in a statement. On Tuesday, the commission announced that it needed at least two more months to complete the inquiry, raising the prospect of a report delivered in July, in the heat of the presidential campaign. Republican strategists have worried that the report may be critical of the Bush administration — specifically, of failures by the White House to act on intelligence before Sept. 11 suggesting that a catastrophic terrorist attack might be imminent — and that it could damage the president's re-election hopes if presented in the middle of the campaign. Groups representing the families of victims of the attack have joined in calling for an extension, saying that it would be improper for the White House and Congressional Republicans to try to rush the commission into completing its work. The commission, known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, has complained that some executive branch agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration and the Pentagon, were slow to meet its requests for documents and other evidence about the attacks.
What we'll be getting, whenever we get it, is a Toon stooge staged whitewash.
And the people they have talked to aren't even under oath. What a joke.
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