Fomer CIA Analyst Mel Goodman: Rep. McKinney Hearing Addressed Issues of Substance :: 9/11 CitizensWatch :: We are concerned citizens challenging the

Fomer CIA Analyst Mel Goodman: Rep. McKinney Hearing Addressed Issues of Substance :: 9/11 CitizensWatch :: We are concerned citizens challenging the official story of 9/11

Letter to Editor: Atlanta Journal Constitution

Conspiracy theories: Responses to "McKinney reopens 9/11," News, July 23

Hearing addressed issues of substance

Bob Kemper's article was unfair to Rep. Cynthia McKinney, the hearing's participants and his readers.

Most of the testimony dealt with the flaws of the 9/11 commission and the reform proposals, the reform legislation of 2004 and the policies of the Bush administration that have led to a tragic, unnecessary war in Iraq. Testimony from family members of Sept. 11 victims concentrated on the need for further investigation, not on conspiracy theory. My testimony criticized the commission for ignoring issues of accountability and promoting reforms that merely redesigned the architecture of the intelligence community. None of the reforms would have prevented the intelligence abuses of the run-up to the Iraq war, let alone another terrorist attack.

References to conspiracy theory came from questions to the participants, most of whom strongly disagreed with the emphasis on conspiracy. The hearing concluded that much work needed to be done on the Sept. 11 attacks, noted areas for continued research and query, and outlined a new U.S. national security policy.

MELVIN A. GOODMAN
Goodman, of Bethesda, Md., is a senior fellow at the Center for
International Policy and a former CIA analyst.
Speculation and theory had no place in a forum making the foundational case against key elements of the official story and the flawed or deficient findings of facts and circumstances produced in the 9/11 Commission's 9/11 Report. Of course the same applies to the briefings of July 22nd on the Hill that took issue with and critiqued the 9/11 Commission's recommendations. That the Atlanta-Journal Constitution printed such a distorted and inaccurate picture of the very substantive and fact focused briefings paints a clear picture for us of the complicity of big corporate media in cover-up and underhanded smear attacks.

The AJC in effect spit in the faces of Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg and Monica Gabrielle who simply catalogued key areas of inquiry and their own findings which either ran counter to Commission findings or were left altogether of their 9/11 Report. Shame on the Atlanta Journal Constitution. They are not practicing journalism rather they are grinding their axe in an effort to discredit the voices gathering on the Hill and elsewhere that shed new light on the attacks and the 9/11 Commission's cover-up and wholesale exoneration