Keep 9/11 report open

Keep 9/11 report open
Scripps Howard: After 19 months and an extension of its mandate, the commission investigating 9/11 is wrapping up its work. The last public hearing starts Wednesday, and its final report is due out July 26.
While some of the hearings have been marred by charges of partisanship, the staff reports have been solid, professional and insightful. The recommendations in the final report should give Congress and the administration much to act on, and the narrative of the events leading up to 9/11 should prove illuminating.
Among its last act, the commission is considering asking the White House to declassify much of the supporting information it has amassed. And it is considering asking that the information that remains secret be declassified in 10 years instead of 25.
Let White House decide
Although we favor maximum openness and find this White House excessively secretive, the question of what should and should not be declassified is outside the commission's mandate. And if it presses the point, the commission will detract from its final report because the president's more zealous defenders will accuse it of trying to embarrass the Bush administration in the run up to the election.
The commissioners might still be irritated that they had such a difficult time extracting requested documents from several government agencies, on occasion going public with threats and subpoenas. But that information was turned over with a reasonable expectation of confidentiality.
The 10 commissioners and the parties that testified before the commission can single out what they think should be declassified, but the commission as an entity should stay out of the fight, especially since the panel is set to dissolve a month after its report.
We hope the Bush administration will declassify as much of the source material as it can and restrain its natural urge to censor and that Congress will aggressively see that it does. Openness will do much to dispel the inevitable 9/11 conspiracy theories that will follow the report.