As the events of 9/11 fade into Americans' short term memory loss, officially sanctioned investigations into what really happened have been studiously ignored by the media, most politicians and the public.

Long time "intelligence insiders," Senator Bill Graham and Congressman Peter Goss from Florida chaired the first Congressional Joint Inquiry. As the planes crashed into the buildings on 9/11 these two were in a meeting with the general in charge of Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI. Two months before that day, this general had approved a $100,000 transfer to Mohammed Atta, one of the hijackers.

The joint inquiry held hearings for a year and issued an official report last summer. Their hearings and final report barely made a ripple in the ruffled pond of endless "news" about scandals. What wasn't blacked out for "national security" in their report was whitewashed over, with no single individual or agency held to blame.

Nevertheless a clear picture of documented "dots" that were "not connected" by our $40 billion a year "intelligence" agencies, was handed to the media and reading public. The "blanked out" Saudi pages got the only headlines, partly because they were in the first part of the report and easier "reading." Only the Coastal Post reported on the lengthy dissenting opinion by commission member, Sen. Richard Shelby, who called for the resignation of the current and former directors of the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA. (See Coastal Post Sept. 2003.)

The fatal errors and complete incompetence of government agencies to follow their own rules and failing to protecting citizens on 9/11/01 was yesterday's news-good for fishwrap only.

Where's the Accountability?

There have been no structural improvements in those agencies nor have incompetent officials been fired. Instead they've just been given more money and leeway to strip away constitutional rights. 9/11 was preventable with the funding, protocols and powers these agencies had before the Patriot Act and the boondoggle of the Homeland Security Agency.

Now the second appointed commission on 9/11 is holding hearings because the first was such a sham. Family members of the victims continued to pressure congress and Bush for an independent investigation. He finally caved, but they still haven't gotten an "independent" commission. The majority of appointed members have known conflicts of interest. Even so, they've been much tougher than expected, and Commission chairman Thomas Kean recently declared that 9/11 could have been prevented. The commission has already heard testimony that should have been dynamite yet mysteriously sank under media and public interest radar.

The only two story angles the media have devoted much attention to were whether the commission would get the two month extension of their deadline they were requesting to "finish," and whether George Bush would consent to meet privately with a couple of members for more than an hour.

Clinton officials are scheduled to testify before the commission that they warned Bush specifically about the terrorist threat from Al-Qaeda. Richard Clarke, counterterrorism specialist for four presidents, said Bush "ignored terrorism for months when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11," in an interview on 60 Minutes. An August 6 2001 intelligence briefing Bush heard was about al-Qaeda plans to hijack airplanes and crash them, according to reports leaked to the Washington Post.

Where's the Demand?

Bush's testimony about 9/11 is more critical and compelling than impeachment hearings over Bill Clinton's denial of having sex with that woman.

The reports prepared by the commission's staff are predictably mealy mouthed and weasel around any direct blame for accountability. However an amazing Statement on Aviation Security by Carol Ashley, mother of a Twin Towers victim, was entered into the record of their 7th hearing. (www.9-11commission.gov)

She is a member of the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Independent Commission. Relatively few families of victims are pursuing the truth about the attacks and won't accept government lies and excuses. They haven't moved on to the Jackson's latest scandal, although most families were paid millions by the government to just get over it. Ashley's statement provides devastating contradictions to any claims of the Bush administration that they didn't know about the threat and couldn't have prevented 9/11. She presented documented bombshells and asked pointed questions about them that should have rocked the media and the government.

Clear warnings from Philippines intelligence were given to the CIA in 1995 that Muslim terrorists were taking flying lessons in the US to hijack planes and fly them into government buildings in Washington DC.

The imminence of such an attack was widely known in the summer of 2001, and many top officials, including John Ashcroft stopped taking commercial airlines. Top Pentagon officials and Mayor Willie Brown of SF were warned not to fly that very day.

The first flight AA11 was known to be off course and a suspected hijacking at 8:13 am, 14 minutes after takeoff. The FAA is required to notify NORAD to interdict planes when they are off course "by the most expeditious route." NORAD had 20 military jets on standby and two in the air that morning, which could have reached the flight before it crashed into the first Tower at 8:46 am if they had been ordered to do so expeditiously. NORAD says they were not alerted until 8:40 am, the FAA says they notified NORAD at 8:34 am.

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who had to approve any military response to FAA emergency requests, was not even notified until after the third plane hit the Pentagon. He said he knew nothing until he "raced outside" and talked to an "eyewitness" who said an "aircraft plow [ed] into the Pentagon."

When the 2nd plane hit the South Tower at 9:05 am, half the world knew America was under attack. Yet the SecDef had not been warned, and the President continued to read a children's story and loiter at a school in Florida for 40 minutes after he was told by his press secretary "we are under attack."

Where's The Blame?

The airline lobby had so much influence that they wagged the dogs of FAA, INS and congressional oversight of airline security. They defeated rules against more secure cockpit doors. They delayed implementation of many recommendations from the Gore Commission on Aviation Safety and Security of 1996 that could have prevented the hijackers from even boarding the planes.

They opposed effective enforcement of security rules by the INS and airport security. Even though 9 of the 19 named hijackers on 9/11 were selected for special security screenings because they aroused suspicion, they were all allowed to board. Two of those hijackers were placed on a CIA terrorist watchlist in Aug. 2001, but the FAA was not notified of this.

Congress, the FAA and INS enabled the airlines to ignore security risks, and then taxpayers bailed the airlines out for $15 billion after the security failures of 9/11 scared off passengers. No investigation of the hijacking and crashes of 4 aircraft on 9/11 has been done by the National Transportation Safety Board, which has investigated "every single aviation disaster" to find out what went wrong and take steps to prevent more based on their findings.

Instead the FBI seized all airline evidence from that day, including black boxes, transcripts of air controller-pilot conversations and wreckage. The FBI continues to hold this evidence in an undisclosed location, but has told family members that they are investigating only the terrorists, not the crashes.

Governor Jeb Bush of Florida had all documents from Huffman Aviation in Venice, Florida, where some of the hijackers trained to fly, removed and flown out of the country in a cargo plane shortly after 9/11.

Almost any of these facts should be fodder for headline writers, television newsbites, op-eds, talk show jokes and tabloid conspiracies. The media blackout of these and many, more scandalous items feeds the conspiracists view that corporate owned media monopolies are colluding with corporate owned government to "pay no attention to [what's] behind the curtain" of 9/11.