9/11 panel offers insights, raises troubling questions

Preliminary findings released this week by the independent panel investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks on America shed light on many unanswered questions with credibility, insight and detail.
At the same time, some of the findings from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States raise troubling new questions about the Bush administration's zeal to link the Al-Qaida network to the former despotic regime in Iraq, a tie that helped to build popular support for the president's case for war.
Numerous details
Many of the specific conclusions made public this week prove that the Sept. 11 commission has done its homework. Voluminous accounts of pre-attack strategies and America's immediate response to it are fully explained and clearly documented. Some are enlightening. Others are downright frightening. Among them:
UOriginal plans by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the attacks, called for 10 hijacked planes, hitting such additional targets as the White House, Capitol and skyscrapers on the West Coast.
U The role of Saudi Arabia was minimal. No evidence exists that the Saudi government or any high-level officials within it contributed to Al-Qaida.
U The strikes overwhelmed all immediate efforts at response or even full comprehension. Vice President Dick Cheney, for example, gave at least four orders to shoot down hijacked planes.
These and many other preliminary findings will help Americans better understand the genesis of and immediate response to the deadly strikes. Equally as important, the panel -- by its forceful assertions dissociating Al-Qaida and Iraq -- reassures Americans that it truly is an independent commission, not a sounding board for the White House line.
The administration's line of defense for entering the war, already weakened by failure to prove Iraq had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction, has been strained anew by the commission.
No connection
The commission said no evidence points to any collaborative relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaida before Sept. 11. Indeed it said that Saddam had ignored bin Laden's appeals to establish training camps in Iraq and for help in obtaining weapons.
Although the Bush administration never directly tied Saddam to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, numerous attempts have been made by Bush and Cheney to connect the former tyranny in Iraq to the ongoing tyranny of Al-Qaida. As recently as earlier this week, Cheney said Saddam "had long-established ties with Al-Qaida," and Bush defended the vice president's assertion.
Such fuzzy connections can and do affect public opinion. Polls last year showed that more than two-thirds of Americans believed Iraq was behind the Sept. 11 attacks.
It is now left up to the Bush administration to ante up and explain the contradictions between its statements and the commission's findings.
That could be a difficult task. Evidence of strong pre-war Iraqi-Al-Qaida links would not only fly in the face of the 9/11 panel's conclusions but also contradict assessments by the CIA, other U.S. intelligence agencies, former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay and U.N. terrorism experts.
Short of its own credible contradictory evidence, the administration should take stock of the commission's findings, cease such comparisons and focus on its tangible defenses for our entry to war 15 months ago.