Friday, April 02, 2004

The underappreciated Geraldine Sealey, who writes Salon's War Room '04 column, which is a journalist's blog of sorts, notes this New York Times article that says that over three-quarters of the relevant Clinton White house files on foreign policy and counterterrorism that the 9-11 comission have asked for are being withheld by the Bush administration, claiming security concerns.

"Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said some Clinton administration documents had been withheld because they were 'duplicative or unrelated,' while others were withheld because they were 'highly sensitive' and the information in them could be relayed to the commission in other ways. 'We are providing the commission with access to all the information they need to do their job,' Mr. McClellan said."

"The commission and the White House were reacting to public complaints from former aides to Mr. Clinton, who said they had been surprised to learn in recent months that three-quarters of the nearly 11,000 pages of files the former president was ready to offer the commission had been withheld by the Bush administration.


[emphasis mine.]