It's interesting to note that the journalist that wrote this, Robert Scheer, was later fired for, according to him, "exposing the lies used by President Bush to justify the invasion of Iraq." - Jon

Source: latimes.com

Robert Scheer -- Los Angeles Times -- February 15, 2005

Would George W. Bush have been reelected president if the public understood how much responsibility his administration bears for allowing the 9/11 attacks to succeed?

The answer is unknowable and, at this date, moot. Yet it was appalling to learn last week that the White House suppressed until after the election a damning report that exposes the administration as woefully incompetent if not criminally negligent. Belatedly declassified excerpts from still-secret sections of the 9/11 commission report, which focus on the failure of the Federal Aviation Administration to heed multiple warnings that Al Qaeda terrorists were planning to hijack planes as suicide weapons, make clear that this tragedy could have been avoided.

For the last three years, administration apologists have tried to make the FAA the scapegoat for the 9/11 attacks. But it is the president who ultimately is responsible for national security, not a defanged agency that is beholden to the industry it allegedly monitors. The terrible fact is that the administration took none of the steps that would have put the protection of human life ahead of a diverse set of economic and political interests, which included not offending our friends the Saudis and not hurting the share prices of airline corporations.