Varying Interpretations of 9/11 Panel’s Report

To the question posed in your July 26 article, “Questions Persist Despite 9/11 Investigations,” concerning “who provided the nearly half a million dollars it costs to carry out the attacks,” one can only speculate why the 9/11 commission never asked about the $43 million given by the United States to the Taliban in May 2001 for eradicating Afghanistan’s opium poppies.

It is not unreasonable to suspect that the Taliban, five months before 9/11, gave some of that money to the Al Qaeda leadership residing in its country. Is it possible that the person ultimately responsible for providing the money to Al Qaeda was President Bush?

Lanny Swerdlow

Palm Springs

*

So Bush has decided to move quickly on the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, the very commission that he had so adamantly opposed (July 26). Now we have the bewildering spectacle of a U.S. president being the flag-bearer for reforms that, had he gotten his way, would not even exist. I’d love to see the convoluted logic Bush supporters use to defend this one.

David McMillan

Los Angeles

*

Re “An Excuse-Spouting Bush Is Busted by 9/11 Report,” Commentary, July 27: How ironic that for all the disdain the left has for religion, Robert Scheer in his Bush-bashing column behaves like a religious fanatic. His audacious citing of the 9/11 report -- ignoring the damning evidence on the Clinton administration’s failure on four occasions to eliminate Osama bin Laden, as well as the crucial evidence supporting the Iraq invasion, namely that Iraqis met with the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 1998 -- shows that Scheer does not concern himself with hard facts, only his beliefs.

Richard Friedman

Los Angeles