The October surprise ... five months late

There are two scandals in today's NY Times story on just-declassified
portions of the 9/11 Commission report that detail the many specific
warnings about al Qaeda the FAA received:

The first is the dangerous incompetence of the FAA and of airport
security in the months leading up to September 11th.

The second is that this was not released before the election. That
feels, sounds, tastes, and smells like election fraud.

During the commission hearings and when its report was released, based
on what we were told, I was one of those who said the blame for not
stopping the attacks could not fall on one administration, neither
Clinton nor Bush. But now we are told this:

The report discloses that the Federal Aviation Administration, despite
being focused on risks of hijackings overseas, warned airports in the
spring of 2001 that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange
hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular
explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable."

The report takes the F.A.A. to task for failing to pursue domestic
security measures that could conceivably have altered the events of
Sept. 11, 2001, like toughening airport screening procedures for
weapons or expanding the use of on-flight air marshals. The report,
completed last August, said officials appeared more concerned with
reducing airline congestion, lessening delays, and easing airlines'
financial woes than deterring a terrorist attack.

The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full,
classified version of the report for more than five months, officials
said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it
provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil
aviation system. The administration provided both the classified
report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives
two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the
declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the
warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an
attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.

Among other things, the report says that leaders of the F.A.A.
received 52 intelligence reports from their security branch that
mentioned Mr. bin Laden or Al Qaeda from April to Sept. 10, 2001. That
represented half of all the intelligence summaries in that time.

Five of the intelligence reports specifically mentioned Al Qaeda's
training or capability to conduct hijackings, the report said. Two
mentioned suicide operations, although not connected to aviation, the
report said....

The F.A.A. did not see a need to increase the air marshal ranks
because hijackings were seen as an overseas threat, and one aviation
official told the commission said that airlines did not want to give
up revenues by providing free seats to marshals.

The F.A.A. also made no concerted effort to expand their list of
terror suspects, which included a dozen names on Sept. 11, the report
said. The former head of the F.A.A.'s civil aviation security branch
said he was not aware of the government's main watch list, called
Tipoff, which included the names of two hijackers who were living in
the San Diego area, the report said.

Nor was there evidence that a senior F.A.A. working group on security
had ever met in 2001 to discuss "the high threat period that summer,"
the report said.

Now we must know who decided to classify this material and keep it
from the nation before the election. Who and why?