Are the democrats really playing it safe on 9/11

Mike Zmolek

What was the first order of business for the Democrats upon assuming control of Congress in January? Withdrawing the troops from Iraq? Finding a way to provide health care to 40 million uninsured Americans? Impeaching George W. Bush? Think again. The first bill to be introduced, HR 1, titled: "Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act of 2007," passed the House by a vote of 299 to 128 on January 9th, 2007. The bill is now in committee in the Senate. Rather than running the risk of appearing "soft on terror", dissenting Republicans defended their votes against the bill by claiming that most of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations had already been implemented by the previous Republican-led Congress.

Assuming the recommendations of the 9/11Commission themselves are sound, choosing this as the first piece of legislation is a pretty safe strategy. The Democrats have two things going for them: Republicans will be wary of balking at the price tag and the public will be generally supportive because they have been convinced that not enough has been done to keep us safe from terrorism.But that's the troubling part. By aggressively moving forward with adopting these unchallenged recommendations, the Democrats will be lending legitimacy to a body thatwas deeply flawed from its inception to its conclusions

Initially, the Bush Administration stonewalled on any investigation. Eventually, pressure from the families of the victims of 9/11 forced the Administration to cough up $3 million for an investigation (compared with the $100 million the Republican Congress appropriated for Kenneth Starr to investigate Bill Clinton). $3 million later became $30 million. That's about $1,000 per victim. Let's have that again: $30 million to investigate the mass murder of 3,000 American citizens; $100 million to investigate Bill Clinton’s peccadillos.The tale of the 9/11 Commission is one of unending woe: an Administration that refused to cooperate by handing over documents or allowing its top officials to testify under oath, numerous resignations and recusals, dozens of the families' questions left unanswered, and a final product that is non-verifiable because nearly every footnote leads the reader to a classified document unavailable for public scrutiny. By the fourth out of a dozen hearings, the Commission had shifted focus to shaping its recommendations, long before any conclusions could be drawn from the investigation. Most of all, the 9/11 Commission steered clear of any serious criticism of the Bush Administration's pre-9/11 foreign policy or the post 9/11 "War on Terror."In 2005, on the first anniversary of the release of the 9/11 Commission's Final Report, Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia held a briefing that brought together critics of the Report, including family members and scholars, to address the failures of the Commission, reiterate the outstanding questions and critique its recommendations.

The only other Member of Congress to attend was Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick of Illinois, the current Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Nine hours of expert testimony left little doubt that the 9/11 Commission Report's conclusions were a rubber stamp of the Bush Administration's foreign policy, or that its recommendations would ultimately do little to address the history and root causes, or the methods needed to defuse and defeat terrorism.HR 1 is front-loaded with measures designed to improve airport security, crack down on terrorist travel and beef up support for first responders. HR 1 is not a bill, it's bill-zilla. Its complexity outstrips even the enormous and ultimately doomed HR 4197 of the 109th Congress--the CBC's omnibus package for Katrina survivors, a bill which got bogged down in over a dozen committees as hundreds of thousands of survivors in diaspora waited in vain for Congress to pass meaningful legislation to help them return home. HR 1 sets out to reshape information sharing within Homeland Security and simultaneously crack down on black market smuggling in nuclear materials. Only at the last, when we come to Title XIV, do we read anything about diplomacy. And what kind of diplomatic initiatives are proposed? Pipe more television into the Middle East to improve our image. Offer better educational opportunities to students from Muslim countries. A series of bland and paternalistic statements like: "...enhance counter-terrorism cooperation with the Government of Saudi Arabia, if the political leaders of such government are committed to making a serious, sustained effort to combatterrorism." No wonder Republicans are saying "Been there, done that." Safer airports? Sure.Go after terrorist financing? You bet.Track down black market nuclear materials? By all means.But even if the Democrats' effort to simply ram through all of these recommendations in one fell swoop actually advances such lofty goals and does not turn counterproductive, there is little in HR 1 that questions or challenges the overall framework of the Bush Doctrine. That is to be expected, for the 9/11 Commission failed to take an honest look at how U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has stoked the fires of terrorism. Instead, the thrust of its policy recommendations is to call for spending endless billions on improving homeland security measures.

Decades from now, will Americans be the beneficiaries of a wiser foreign policy in the Middle East that acknowledges rather than denies the legitimacy of the grievances of Arab and Muslim populations? Will we engage in meaningful diplomacy, making appropriate concessions and building new and perhaps unlikely alliances? Will we deal with the causes of terrorism, or just the symptoms? Or will we keep the options of illegal invasion, occupation and the threat of “small” tactical nuclear weapons “on the table,” whilst spending trillions annually in the frail hope of preventing future 9/11s?
Mike Zmolek is a former Legislative Assistant for Representative CynthiaMcKinney of Georgia, and former National Outreach Coordinator for the NationalNetwork to End the War Against Iraq.