News Release - Sunday, May 19, 2002

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Greens Demand an Investigation into Bush's Prior Knowledge of the September 11 Attacks.

Probe must be independent of Congress and the White House, say Green candidates.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green candidates and other members of the Green Party of the United States repeated the call for Congress to authorize an independent investigation into the attacks on September 11, in the wake of revelations that the Bush Administration failed to inform Americans about indications that Osama bin Laden was behind a plan to highjack airlines.

"The government of the United States owes this to the American people, and especially to the victims and their relatives," said Ted Glick, New Jersey Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate. "It should be an independent investigation, with broad subpoena power and access to classified information, conducted by a body of citizens outside of Congress and the Ashcroft Justice Department."

"While the White House tries to downplay the news, it's becoming clear that this is even more gravely serious than the Enron debacle, which Congress refused to investigate as a political scandal and only as corporate malfeasance. An investigation needs to be directed by those whose only interest is in finding the truth, and who have the courage and resolve to seek the truth regardless of political or criminal implications.  Relatives of the victims should play a major role in the committee overseeing the investigation."

Other candidates seeking their states' Green Party nomination, including Stanley Aronowitz (for Governor of New York) and Charles Pillsbury (for Congress, Connecticut 3rd District) have also called for an independent investigation. Like millions of other Americans and many of the mainstream media, Greens are asking hard questions:

  • Why did the Bush Administration fail for nine months after September 11th to disclose its knowledge of intelligence warnings from as early as May, 2001? Did top Republicans and Democrats, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), in the House and Senate Intelligence Committees also conceal such knowledge? Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has admitted that they had received the same classified information as the President.

  • Why did President Bush and Vice President Cheney, the latter repeatedly, contact Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to urge the Senate not to conduct a full investigation into September 11? 

  • Will apologies be paid to Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), after the harsh criticism and derision she received from Trent Lott (R-Ms), Zell Miller (D-GA), and others last month for demanding an investigation into possible White House foreknowledge of the attacks?

  • If suspicions of an attack came in part from intelligence warnings about questionable enrollments in flight training schools (August 6, 2001 secret memo to the President, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."), why does the White House say it expected a conventional hijacking? Since when are years of pilot training part of the preparation for what Press Secretary Ari Fleischer called a "traditional" hijacking?

  • Did insider trading occur on Wall Street based on knowledge of an impending attack? Did U.S. intelligence, which tracks trading patterns, detect the jump in United Airlines put options (90 times above normal) between September 6 and 10, 2001, and 285 times higher than average on September 7; or the jump in American Airlines put options (60 times above normal) on September 10? (Put options are leveraged bets that a stock's price will fall.) This was reported on CBS News on September 26, 2001; no similar trading patterns occurred for other airlines.

  • "The Attorney General John Ashcroft stopped using ordinary commercial jets in early summer after an internal security warning." (The Independent, May 17, 2001) Why did the FBI advise Ashcroft, as later reported by CBS News on July 26, 2001, to avoid commercial flights for the remainder of his term? Did it occur to Ashcroft (and Bush) to ask what the threat was? Should other Americans have been warned?

  • Did plans for the trans-Afghanistan pipeline to transport oil from Turkmenistan motivate Bush to block intelligence gathering on al Qaeda in early and mid 2001? According to CNN, this obstruction drove FBI Deputy Director John O'Neill to resign two weeks before September 11. (After leaving the FBI, O'Neill became security director at the World Trade Center, where he died on September 11.) The revival of pipeline plans after September 11 was denied by the White House in late 2001, but confirmed in a February 8, 2002 joint declaration by Afghan interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and more recently by World Bank chief James Wolfensohn. What kind of influence did oil interests have over Bush intelligence policy before and after September 11? 

  • What elementary precautions could airlines, the FAA, and the U.S. military have taken to improve security on commercial flights and at major landmarks known to be vulnerable? Why didn't U.S. intelligence agencies compile, compare, and analyze numerous intelligence reports, such as the e-mail from a Minneapolis FBI agent suggesting that Zaccarias Moussaoui might fly a jumbo jet into the World Trade Center? Could the attacks have been prevented? 



Contacts:

Nancy Allen, Media Coordinator, 207-326-4576, nallen@acadia.net 
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, scottmclarty@yahoo.com 

The Green Party of the United States
http://gpus.org 
http://www.gp.org 
National office: 
1314 18th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN

Index of Green Party candidates in 2002 
http://www.gp.org/patience.html

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News Release - Sunday, May 19, 2002

Home | Press