James Ridgeway

James Ridgeway: Cheney's Bunker Mentality

http://www.motherjones.com/print/24017

Cheney's Bunker Mentality
By James Ridgeway | Sun May 24, 2009 9:43 PM PST

Say what you will about Dick Cheney, at least he's consistent. While he was in office, the Vice President made a practice of exploiting the fear and loss wrought by the 9/11 attacks to advance his own political agenda—and he's still doing it now. During his speech at the American Enterprise Institute on Thursday, according to Dana Milbank's calculations in the Washington Post, "Cheney used the word 'attack' 19 times, 'danger' and 'threat' six times apiece, and 9/11 an impressive 27 times."

In this putative rebuttal to Obama speech on national security, Cheney described how he spent the morning of 9/11 "in a fortified White House command post," receiving "the reports and images that so many Americans remember from that day," and then declared:

In the years since, I've heard occasional speculation that I'm a different man after 9/11. I wouldn't say that. But I'll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities.

Congress On 9/11

Source: motherjones.com

James Ridgeway
1/9/2006

Pelosi's proposals for increased secruity by implimenting the remaining 911 Commission proposals are beside the point. The Commission itself avoided asking any really hard questions, like, for instance, putting Bush under oath and getting him to tell what happened that day. It even contributed to the administration's overall obfuscation by hiding its own staff study of the inadequate FAA response to numerous pre-attack warnings, then finally releasing them -- after the presidential election. The Congress never has exercised any oversight to speak of over the FAA, and that includes under both Democratic and Republican leadership. For more than a decade the FAA ignored warnings by its own staff and the Congress could have cared less -- quite possibly because of close ties to the industry by former members such as George Mitchell. Tom Daschle's wife was an airline lobbyist when he was Majority leader of the Senate.

The Members of the Family Steering Committee for the 911 Independent Commission issued a set of ratings and questions after the commission shut down. They remain unanswered. Compiled by Jersey Girls Mindy Kleinberg and Lorie Van Auken, they include such things as how come after Bush was told by the White House situation room a commercial airliner had hit the World Trade Towers, he continued with his classroom visit to the Florida elementary school? And after Bush got warnings of an attack from 11 different nations, what did he do to defend this country? There are more than 20 pages of questions from the families. You can read them here [pdf].

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