DU General Forums in the Village Voice (questions for Bush-Cheney)

[paulthompson]

Hi,
Yesterday I was asked by James Ridgeway at the Village Voice what questions I would ask Bush-Cheney when they're questioned by the 9/11 Commission on Thursday. I made a post in this General Forum asking for suggestions, and passed those on, as well as some questions of my own. The Jersey Girls also sent him their list of 23 unanswered questions, and he used some of those.

So if you responded to that thread, check to see if your questions got in. I can see a lot of them that made the cut. Personally I think he did an excellent job and got most of the important points in.


Grilled to Order

What we’d Like to ask when Bush and Cheney take the hot seat

by James Ridgeway

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0417/mondo2.php

On Thursday, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will sit together and speak—off the record and in private—to the 9-11 Commission. Bush and Cheney can make a record of the interview, but the commission, under a bizarre agreement, is prohibited from doing so.

By refusing to appear separately or in public, the two may have taken the panel for a ride, but they can't avoid the tough questions forever. Both give every sign of having been asleep at the switch on 9-11. Worse, for months they have been engaged in collusion to obstruct justice by thwarting first congressional and then commission investigations. Sooner or later, both must be served with subpoenas, sworn to tell the truth, and ordered to testify under threat of impeachment and/or criminal prosecution.

Let's start with Bush. Here's the setup: Morning, September 11, 2001. At 8:40 NORAD is notified Flight 11 has been hijacked. At 8:43 NORAD is notified Flight 175 is hijacked. At 9, Bush arrives at the Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, where he takes a call from Condoleezza Rice before entering an elementary school classroom for a photo op. Certainly by that moment Rice must have known that one plane had hit the World Trade Center and another had been hijacked.

Now a few simple questions for our president, the last six from the Family Steering Committee, whose members lost loved ones on 9-11:

[spotbird]

1. Since, by their account, they were aggressively fighting terror

and heeding all the warnings, why didn't they know to scramble the jets at the moment of the first report of the first hijacking.

[cprise]

2. Or for that matter

...why were the interceptors (dispatched late) flying at a fraction of their top speed?

[Old and In the Way]

3. Thanks Paul!

It looks like 2 of my questions made it to print.....now if only I could be there to hear Bush's explanation.