Political Skullduggery

Vice-President Dick Cheney, who admitted having issued a "shoot-down" order for any hijacked planes coming toward the nation's capital on the morning of September 11, 2001, has long claimed that he was merely relaying the express authorization given to him by President Bush.

The new issue of Newsweek, online this morning, has a revealing bit of information buried six pages into a story about Cheney.

We now know why the government concocted the "lets roll" myth of the brave passengers forcing down Flight 93 over Pennsylvania.

People who were with the Vice-President on that morning say that, despite Cheney's testimony to the contrary to the 9-11 commission, he never got the required okay from President Bush to shoot down airliners.

Around 9:35 on the morning of 9/11, Cheney was lifted off his feet by the Secret Service and hustled into the White House bunker. Cheney testified to the 9/11 Commission that he spoke with President Bush before giving an order to shoot down a hijacked civilian airliner that appeared headed toward Washington. (The plane was United Flight 93, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field after a brave revolt by the passengers.) (sic) But a source close to the commission, who declined to be identified revealing sensitive information, says that none of the staffers who worked on this aspect of the investigation believed Cheney's version of events.

A draft of the report conveyed their skepticism. But when top White House officials, including chief of staff Andy Card and the then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, reviewed the draft, they became extremely agitated. After a prolonged battle, the report was toned down. The factual narrative, closely read, offers no evidence that Cheney sought initial authorization from the president. The point is not a small one. Legally, Cheney was required to get permission from his commander in chief, who was traveling (but reachable) at the time. If the public ever found out that Cheney gave the order on his own, it would have strongly fed the view that he was the real power behind the throne.

It was worse than that, Newsweek is covering for the administration's real problem. It was not concern about "the real power behind the throne" that bothered the White House.

The big problem was that an Air National Guard unit shot down Flight 93 without the statutorily required authorization from the President. This is a scandal of monumental proportion.

This helps to explain why Bush and Cheney initially refused to establish a 9-11 commission, and when pressured to do so, why they insisted upon testifying together and without swearing an oath.

It also explains Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's "slip of the tongue" when he referred to "the people who shot down Flight 93 over Pennsylvania."