Did White House Release Misleading Information On 9-11 Air? White House Altered EPA Reports?

NBC Report ^ | 09-03-02

[Brian S]

NBC Report: White House Altered EPA Reports On Safety Of Air Quality

POSTED: 9:19 p.m. EDT September 3, 2003 UPDATED: 11:19 p.m. EDT September 3, 2003

Just a week after Sept. 11, 2001, the agency responsible for the environmental health of Americans-- the Environmental Protection Agency -- declared the air and water safe in New York.

But now, in her first interview, the EPA's top watchdog says the agency didn't have the facts when it said it was safe to move back to the offices and homes near ground zero -- and she's pointing the finger all the way to the White House.

In the wake of 9/11, there were serious concerns about whether the air around ground zero was filled with toxins that were unsafe for workers and residents.

But by Sept. 18, 2001, many New Yorkers were back in their apartments and on the job. Partly because of a press release that day from the EPA reassuring New Yorkers that "their air is safe to breathe."

In an exclusive interview, Inspector General Nikki Tinsley - the EPA's top watchdog -- told NBC News that the agency simply did not have sufficient data to justify such a reassurance.

In fact, a new report by Tinsley's office says at the time, more than 25 percent of dust samples collected before Sept. 18, 2001, showed unsafe levels of asbestos. But the EPA had no test results at all on PCBs, dioxins, or particulates in the air that can cause respiratory problems.

"The EPA did not give the people of New York complete information," Tinsley said. "It had put together press releases that were more informative than those that it ultimately released."

So what happened?

Tinsley's report charged that in crucial days after 9/11, the White House changed EPA press releases to "add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones."

On Sept. 13, 2001, the EPA draft release that was never released to the public said that EPA "testing terrorized sites for environmental hazards." The White House changed that to EPA "reassures public about environmental hazards."

On Sept 16, 2001, the EPA draft said that "recent samples of dust ... on Water Street show higher levels of asbestos." The White House version read: "new samples confirm ... ambient air quality meets OSHA government standards," and "is not a cause for public concern."

The White House omitted from the report this warning: "That air samples raise concerns for cleanup workers and office workers near Water Street."

So why were all of these changes made? Tinsley believes it was for security public relations.

"We were told that a desire to reopen Wall Street and national security concerns were the reasons for changing the press releases," Tinsley said.

When all the tests on PCBs and particulates did come in, they did not raise any red flags. But that does not satisfy Kathryn Freed, who lives near Ground zero and now has been diagnosed with bronchitis possibly caused by chemicals from 9/11. She never left her apartment, and feels misled.

"I did influence people to stay," Freed said. "I mean, it kind of made me feel better, I'm not sure I really believed it but there was part of me that said 'well, it's OK and I've just got to do what I've got to do' and there won't be health problems."

While Tinlsey suggests the White House misled the public about the air quality around Ground zero, she stops short of accusing anyone of actually lying, or knowingly providing false information. And Tinsley says the EPA handled most things during 9/11 very well.

In her first broadcast interview on this topic, former EPA Administrator Christie Whitman denies misleading anyone.

"The White House never directed the Environmental Protection Agency to withhold facts or to lie to the people of the city of New York."

James Connaughton, the head of the White House environmental policy group that changed the 9/11 press releases, agrees.

"We used the best information to us available at the time," Connaughton said.

[hobbes1]

But does anyone besides me think it's VERY ODD that NBC failed to mention that Kathryn Freed was City Councilman for that district on 9/11

Exactly, I was just getting to that.

[hobbes1]

Tinsley was appointed in 1998 by ....Bill Clinton.

[hellinahandcart]

It was no trouble at all, there were hundreds of Google hits on the woman. There were so many references to Councilwoman Kathryn Freed that I almost didn't believe it could be the same Kathryn Freed, until I saw a picture of her.

She was term-limited out in 2001, and lost the race for Public Advocate, so she really is just plain old Kathryn Freed now. Still, it seems a deliberate oversight for NBC not to mention her previous job and history of agitating on this and other environmental subjects.

Another example of Activist Plant presented as "Man on the Street". There's no way NBC didn't know, so I won't bother sending them anything.

[Safetgiver]

Nonsense. Clinton and his band of placators caused it by not responding, ignoring and not taking any chances on the dozens of terrorist incidents that occurred on HIS WATCH. Blame the EPA? I havent't the time to explain how a professional air sample is taken, but there is not enough time to do a precision sample when a RESCUE is taking place. I good damn guarantee every one at Ground Zero was aware of the possible hazards and refused to wear SCBA or Air Line respirators. Without a good, concrete air study, what kind of respirators would YOU have mandated? PAPR?
Half face particulate filters? Organic vapors filter? Full moon suit so no work would get done? Exactly how would you have handled mandating a specific respirator for a specific hazard and later be held liable for mandating the wrong PPE? I'm interested.

[Safetgiver]

Beautiful.

[Safetgiver]

Read my 64. Maybe you could answer. Also what do I do to keep from breathing PCB's? Is my SCUBA OK? I couldn't work in it on land, though.

[Grampa Dave]

Here is the reason why NBC and Doug Thompson are spreading this bs. There is a new book out that tell how the Clintoon allowed Ben Laden to stay alive and engineer 9/11.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/975942/posts

Posner: Clinton’s Negligence Led to 9/11

Dave Eberhart and NewsMax.com Staff
Thursday, Sept. 4, 2003
Best-selling author Gerald Posner says much of the blame for 9/11 and the U.S. government’s negligence falls squarely on the shoulders of Bill Clinton and his administration.

In a stunning revelation made in his just released “Why America Slept: the Failure to Prevent 9/11” – Posner asserts the disaster of Sept. 11 could have been prevented and that President Clinton passed on more than one opportunity to arrest or kill Osama bin Laden.


Posner describes one incident in 1996 when Clinton passed on an easy opportunity to nab bin Laden.


“When bin Laden leaves the Sudan on a chartered commercial airliner with 150 of his top aides and his family, he goes to Qatar to refuel on his way to Pakistan,” Posner recounted to Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly Wednesday night.


Posner continued: “And Qatar, being an ally of the U.S. calls up and says ‘what should we do with this guy?’


“And the word comes back from the top of the [Clinton] administration ‘let him land and proceed on to Pakistan.’”


Posner’s revelations come on top of one previously reported on NewsMax.com - that Clinton himself admitted he turned down an offer by Sudanese authorities to have bin Laden extradited in 1996.


But Posner’s revelations show just how close U.S. authorities came to capturing bin Laden – but was allowed to go free and implement a worldwide terror spree.


“Why America Slept” paints a picture of gross negligence from the Clinton administration.


“We just weren't focused on Islamic militants,” Posner told NBC’s Katie Couric Wednesday, explaining, “You had President Clinton in an eight-year period, there was two years he met with the head of the CIA twice. That was it. He just wasn't attuned to foreign policy or the issue of terrorism.”


Posner told O’Reilly his investigation of Clinton’s handling of bin Laden left him disgusted.


“This is from a fellow who voted twice for Clinton,” a repentant Posner said. “I wouldn’t do it again.”


Posner argues that had the Republicans been in charge in the 90s, he would have demanded the same accountability.


“I was infuriated. My blood kept boiling as I realized that eight of these ten years leading up to 9/11 were under his watch – and the job that was done was just terrible.”


Posner doesn’t buy arguments that bin Laden was not perceived as a great threat in 1996.


He notes that the CIA came to Clinton with significant evidence about bin Laden before 1996. “He didn’t put bin Laden on the wanted list until 1996, and he doesn’t pull the trigger time and time again.”


Posner is angered that instead of honing up to their culpability for 9/11, Clinton and top aides have been engaging in a false, “revisionist history.”


“You have Berger, you have Albright, and you have Clinton saying this was priority one; we wanted bin Laden with everything we had.”


Saudi Role


What was in those infamous 28 pages censored from Washington's official report on 9/11? Gerald Posner makes some startling revelations in “Why America Slept.”


Posner not only weaves a riveting tale of U.S. intelligence blunders that led to 9/11, he also makes the shocking disclosure of a Saudi-Pakistani-Osama terrorism triangle that should cause U.S. leaders to re-assess exactly who our friends are.


Posner, a former Wall Street lawyer and award-winning author of eight books on subjects ranging from Nazi war criminals, to assassinations (he debunked claims of a conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination), to the careers of politicians, spent 18 months investigating 9/11 -- uncovering explosive new evidence through interviews and in classified documents.


He reveals in “Why America Slept:"



Saudi Arabia and Pakistan had foreknowledge that a terrorist attack was scheduled for September 11, 2001 on U.S. soil.


A startling account of the interrogation of one of bin Laden’s most senior aides, Abu Zubaydah. He is thought to have been in operational control of al-Qaeda's millennium bomb plots, as well as the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in October 2000.


Facts about a series of deaths that point to an ongoing effort by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to hide the extent of their earlier relationships with al-Qaida.


Details about a secret deal made between Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden more than a decade ago - keep your militant fundamentalists away from the Kingdom and we will help fund you.


How the U.S. government under Bill Clinton missed several chances to kill or capture bin Laden.


Evidence that German intelligence may have protected an informant who was involved with many of the 9/11 plotters.


How the CIA tracked - and then lost - two of the hijackers when they entered the United States more than twenty months before the attacks.


The devastating consequences of the crippling rivalry between the CIA and FBI as the United States moved unwittingly toward 9/11.

In his dramatic narrative, Posner exposes the frequent mistakes made by law enforcement and government agencies, and demonstrates how the failures to prevent 9/11 were tragically not an exception but typical.

Along the way, by delving into terror financing, the links between far-flung terror organizations, and how the United States responded over the years to other attacks, Posner also makes a damning case that 9/11 could have been prevented.


Special Interrogation


Posner graphically reveals how U.S. interrogators used drugs to make Zubaydah talk.


When the questioning falters, CIA operatives spirit him to an Afghan complex rigged as a fake Saudi jail chamber, where "two Arab-Americans, now with Special Forces," pretending to be Saudi inquisitors, use more drugs and threats to scare him into revealing his secrets.


At one defining point when accused of lying, Zubaydah responds by erupting with the details of a Saudi-Pakistani-Osama triangle of intrigue.


He ticks off telephone numbers of a senior member of the royal family, that of Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a Westernized nephew of King Fahd. The Saudi connection was through Prince Turki Al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, the kingdom’s intelligence chief.

Further, he reveals how bin Laden had personally told him of a 1991 meeting at which Turki agreed to let Laden leave Saudi and provide him with funds to keep al-Qaida away from the kingdom.


The Pakistani contact, Air Force chief Mushaf Ali Mir, enters the conspiracy at a 1996 meeting in Pakistan. Bin Laden cuts a deal with Mir, who was tied closely to Islamists in Pakistan’s ISI to provide protection, arms and supplies for al-Qaida.


In the end, Posner reveals how the conspirators lose their lives -- seriatim.


On July 22, 2002, Prince Ahmed dies of a heart attack at 43; a day later Prince Turki, 41, is killed in “a high-speed car accident.” The last member, Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, mysteriously perishes of thirst while traveling east of Riyadh - just a week after. Finally, seven months later, Mir perishes in a plane crash.


While the details of the terrorism triangle form the explosive heart of Posner's examination of who did what wrong before Sept. 11, most is a lucid analysis of how the CIA, FBI and U.S. leaders missed a decade's worth of clues and opportunities - if heeded, Posner postulates, might have foiled the 9/11 terrorist attacks.


Since 9/11, one important question has persisted: What was really going on behind the scenes with intelligence services and government leaders during the time preceding the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks?


For sure, the official investigation stops far short of the new revelations offered by Posner.

[BOBTHENAILER]

On July 22, 2002, Prince Ahmed dies of a heart attack at 43; a day later Prince Turki, 41, is killed in “a high-speed car accident.” The last member, Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, mysteriously perishes of thirst while traveling east of Riyadh - just a week after. Finally, seven months later, Mir perishes in a plane crash.

Great post GD. I remember when the Saudis started dropping mysteriously.

[Grampa Dave]

This should be a warning to all the Islamofascist co conspirators in the USA who pretend to be loyal opposition.

They could end up just like the three below when their Islamofascist/nazi buddies feel that they have outlived their usefulness.

"In the end, Posner reveals how the conspirators lose their lives -- seriatim.


On July 22, 2002, Prince Ahmed dies of a heart attack at 43; a day later Prince Turki, 41, is killed in “a high-speed car accident.” The last member, Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, mysteriously perishes of thirst while traveling east of Riyadh - just a week after. Finally, seven months later, Mir perishes in a plane crash."

[mtbopfuyn]

clearing out ANY rubble is going to cause respiratory and other difficulties

Exactly. Any 6 yo knows to craw through smoke because of the toxins. However, big bad Nikki of the EPA made the personal decision to stay in her apartment despite the countless displaced apartment dwellers who stayed away and didn't return until they had their apts cleaned by specialists. The firefighters knew this more than anyone yet they voluntarily took their masks off to see the body parts more clearly. Those good men and women also voluntarily stayed in the smoldering rubble hours/days at a time.

[MizSterious]

Welcome, newbie.

However, I haven't yet seen proof that the government was lying.

[WOSG]

"I know a little bit about how White Houses work," the New York Democrat said. "I know … somebody in that White House, probably under instructions from somebody further up the chain, told the EPA, `Don't tell the people of New York the truth.'

Correction: Hillary knows about *Clinton* White Houses. Just because the Clinton WHite House regularly put political pressur on agencies to make the 'spin' come out the way they wanted, doesnt mean the Bush admin has the same low level of ethics.

[WOSG]

Add your post to post #47 and you have a CLEAR MEDIA HATCHET JOB ... The Slimy headline adds the rest!

Democrats Use shaky evidence to attack Bush

[ImphClinton]

Clinton killed 3,000 on 9/11 with his lies. He lied to the country saying we were safer than ever before. This was just plain false. Given twelve chances to get Bin Laden he lied each time saying he wasn't a threat. Then to take attention away from his lies about BJ's he bombed a location where Bin Laden had been but he waited 24 hours or more to to it so it would occur during Monicas testimony and thun Bin Laden had moved, he knew the window was small but waited anyway.

Clinton killed those 3,000 and others in the African Embacies as much as if he had personally detonated the bombs. He was given numerous opertuinties to stop Bin Laden but passed each time. If I knew my wife was going to murder someone and did nothing I would be in prison. A woman is in Ohio for doing nothing about her husband. Well Clinton knew and did nothing.

[bert]

....and everyone is ok.....

Not if there is laywerin to be done. There are lawyers who have been hunting day and night for a reason to sue someone American for anything that can be conjured up.

This may be just such a cause.

Lawyers are Rats ,are unscrupulous, etc etc.

[bert]

....The deal was, no more attacks on US soil in Xchange for Clinton not destroying everything Al Qaeda.....

Source? The world laughed at Bill Clinton. He was a joke. No one anywhere believed that Bill Clinton had any capacity to destroy Al Queda. It just wasn't in him. He's a lawyer, not a fighter.

[UCANSEE2]

COME ON. This is all dumbocrat bullsh*t to discredit President Bush.

But by Sept. 18, 2001, many New Yorkers were back in their apartments and on the job. Partly because of a press release that day from the EPA reassuring New Yorkers that "their air is safe to breathe."

First off, the air in NEW YORK is NEVER safe to BREATHE, no matter what. SAFE is a relative term, relative to the normal pollution of NEW YORK CITY. Is the air as clean as it is in WISCONSON? Of course not.

Take time to think about what the options would be.

(1)Tell NY'rs they can go home, but they just can't breathe in.

(2) Tell NY'rs they can't go home for 2-3 years. (yea, that would work).

(3) Determine that the RELATIVE AIR CONTAMINATION is low enough to take the risk and return people to their homes and jobs. THAT is the common sense, logical, smart, answer, and the one chosen.

Now the dumocrats want to pick points on a chart set by an Agency that has been tossed around by the Past Federal governments, Federal courts, and LARGE CORPORATIONS to be used to their benefit, as a way to attempt to discredit the President of the United States.

I worked for the EPA for seven years. I enabled them to win their cases against LARGE CORPORATIONS, so I feel safe in claiming a working knowledge of that particular agency.

[UCANSEE2]

You have no idea just how ...... (but no one will believe you).

[UCANSEE2]

She is a piece of work

Wrong adverb.

[UCANSEE2]

Find out who (including little Nikita) were Clinton (I am giving you this high paying job you could never qualify for, so, you owe me) appointees.