Congressman Holt Introduces Anthrax Commission Legislation - Modeled After 9/11 Commission

Congressman Holt wants an anthrax investigation modeled on the 9/11 Commission.

Senators Leahy and White house want a torture investigation modeled on the 9/11 Commission.

But - according to the 9/11 Commission itself - the whole thing was a joke:

• The co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission (Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton) now admit that the Commission largely operated based upon political considerations

• The co-chairs also said that the CIA (and likely the White House) "obstructed our investigation"

• Indeed, they said that the 9/11 Commissioners knew that military officials misrepresented the facts to the Commission, and the Commission considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements, yet didn't bother to tell the American people (free subscription required)

• 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton says "I don't believe for a minute we got everything right", that the Commission was set up to fail, that people should keep asking questions about 9/11, that the 9/11 debate should continue, and that the 9/11 Commission report was only "the first draft" of history
  

• 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that "There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn't have access . . . ."
  

• 9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer said "We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting"
  

• Former 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: "It is a national scandal"; "This investigation is now compromised"; and "One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up"
  

• 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman said that “We purposely put together a staff that had – in a way - conflicts of interest"

• The Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) who led the 9/11 staff's inquiry, said "I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described .... The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years.... This is not spin. This is not true."

And see this and this.

Are we going to fall for yet another whitewash?