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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 5/21/09

Columbia Space Shuttle Investigation $175 Million. Challenger Investigation $100 Million. 9/11 Investigation $15 Million

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Many people have written on the 9/11 Commission's budgetary constraints. See this.

Want to Know has a great new summary of the Commission's scandalously inadequate budget:

The 9/11 commission was originally allotted only $3 million. Eventually, after much begging and haggling, the commission was given $15 million. Yet a CNN article lists the cost of the Lewinsky investigation at $30 million. A Los Angeles Times article states the cost of the Columbia space shuttle disaster investigation was $175 million.

How could 9/11 – the greatest disaster in American history – be given such a small budget for investigation?

Remember, the Commissioners stated that government did everything it could to cover up and obstruct their investigation:
  • The Commission's co-chairs said that the CIA (and likely the White House) "obstructed our investigation"
  • The Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) - who led the 9/11 staff's inquiry - said "At some level of the government, at some point in time...there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened". He also said "I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described .... The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years.... This is not spin. This is not true."
Given such a lack of cooperation, $15 million wasn't enough to even start getting to the bottom of what happened. $15 million didn't pay for much other than some press releases and the costs of printing reports. It certainly wasn't enough to pay for real investigation or legal struggles to discover information which the government was stonewalling.

Indeed, well after the Commission issued its final report, Commissioner Bob Kerrey said it might take "a permanent 9/11 Commission" to end the remaining mysteries of September 11.
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George Washington


As a political activist for decades, I have rejoiced in victories for the people and mourned in defeats. I chose the pen name "George Washington" because - as Washington's biographies show - he wasn't a (more...)
 
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