Worse than Watergate?

The 9-11 Commission - which was supposed to get to the bottom of what the United States could or should have done, if anything, to deter those deadly 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon - is now itself suspected of a cover-up. Maybe a new commission will have to be created to get to the bottom of it all.

It's still too early in this burgeoning scandal to know where it will lead, but it's shaping up as something big - really big, possibly staining Bill Clinton's presidency as badly as Watergate stained Richard Nixon's; maybe even worse, because Watergate didn't lead to 3,000 deaths and a war against terror that has accounted for thousands more deaths.

Here's the issue in a nutshell: A highly placed Army intelligence officer, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, assigned to a unit of the U.S. Department of Defense's Special Operations Command known as Able Danger, says that his project identified 9-11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and three of the other hijackers as dangerous al-Qaida terrorists in mid-2000 - a year before they struck.

This highly relevant information, had it been known and acted on by the FBI and other law enforcers, could have nipped the terrorist attack in the bud and saved thousands of lives. However, the vital information was not shared - and there was no mention of that significant oversight in the 9-11 panel's final report. Why not? Former commission Chairman Thomas Kean and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton said it was because Shaffer had no documentation to back up his report - a charge that Shaffer vehemently denies.

Other Able Danger intelligence officers will back up his story, Shaffer says. And now the commission leader has somewhat altered his position, as Kean is calling on the Pentagon to evaluate the credibility of the Able Danger intelligence officers.

Why would the 9-11 Commission omit the crucial Able Danger information from its final report? No one knows. That's what needs to be fully investigated by Congress or a new commission prodded, hopefully, by an inquisitive news media.

Speculation is that the 9-11 panel covered up to protect one of its members, Jamie Gorelick, from being embarrassed. She's the former Clinton Justice Department official who wrote the infamous "wall of separation" directive preventing U.S. intelligence agencies from sharing information with U.S. law-enforcement agencies.

But the cover-up, or omission, could run deeper than simply trying to save one person from embarrassment. What if the panel is trying to save former President Clinton's place in history, not to mention his wife's presidential ambitions?

Where would the reputation of the nation's 42nd president be if it was learned he was credibly warned of al-Qaida's attack on this country a year before it occurred and did nothing to stop it? It's way too early to reach such a cynical conclusion, but it's not too early to start looking into Shaffer's serious charges - and why the 9-11 Commission didn't report them.