Following up on the story about the White House withholding Clinton-era counterterrorism materials from the 9/11 Commission, we’re closer to a resolution.
As you no doubt recall, the Bush administration blocked thousands of pages of foreign policy and counterterrorism documents from release to the Commission. Once discovered, the White House argued that the the withheld documents were either “duplicative or unrelated.”
Yesterday, Commission staff announced that the documents have been reviewed. Most of the docs were, as the White House said, irrelevant or duplicative — but not all.
The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks announced yesterday that it has identified 69 documents from the Clinton era that the Bush White House withheld from investigators and which include references to al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and other issues relevant to the panel’s work.
The White House turned over 12 of the documents to the commission yesterday, officials said. But 57 others, which were not specifically requested but “nonetheless are relevant to our work,” remain in dispute, according to a commission statement. The panel has demanded the documents and any similar ones from the Bush administration.
I guess the White House deserves credit for almost cooperating this time.
The Commission’s chief counsel, Daniel Marcus, said that “any errors in document production were inadvertent.” But some Commission members are still frustrated with the level of cooperation they’re receiving.
Democratic commissioner Timothy J. Roemer, a former Indiana congressman, said: “We continue to have document problems with this White House. . . . Access to documents is absolutely crucial for this commission to be able to do its work.”
Another Democrat, former Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey, said that although the review team did not find any “blockbusters,” the remaining records “could be significant” and deal with al Qaeda, bin Laden and other terrorism-related issues.
“The commission is very strongly of the view that they need to give us a yes as soon as possible, and I’m hopeful they will,” Kerrey said, referring to the 57 documents still in dispute.
Since the White House seems to cave quickly when it’s on the defensive, I wouldn’t be surprised to see these documents get released to the Commission this week.