Jersey girls continue press for truth (guest post by Uranus)

How about this? You have to hand it to the Jersey girls, they don't give up. In a story published today by Truthout, old friend Jason Leopold says the ladies want the privileged information Bob Woodward revealed in his book State of Denial:

In a letter posted on petitononline.com, Patty Casazza, Monica Gabrielle, Mindy Kleinberg, and Lorie Van Auken said that details of the meeting have been confirmed by the State Department and the White House warrants declassification of documents related to the meeting. The widows take issue with Woodward's exclusive access to officials' knowledgeable about the Rice/Tenet meeting and the possibility that he may have been privy to classified documents and transcripts in order to craft a narrative for his book.

"If Bob Woodward can have access to this information, why can't we, as American citizens and victims' family members?" Van Auken wrote in an email to Truthout, adding that the families of the thousands of people who perished on 9/11 are entitled to know what Bush administration officials knew prior to the 9/11 attacks and when they knew it. "Given that much of the July 10, 2001, meeting has already been made public ... it is unacceptable to continue to keep these documents and transcripts hidden from the American public's view."

The widows, in their online petition addressed to the media and members of Congress, renewed their call for the declassification of the redacted 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry Into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, and the CIA Inspector General's Report, "CIA Accountability With Respect to the 9/11 Attacks."

[...]

Woodward, who has a knack for gaining exclusive access to high-level political officials and classified documents, wrote in his book that on July 10, 2001, Tenet briefed Rice about a looming attack against the US by al-Qaeda - which according to Woodward was the first known instance that an administration official was provided with specific details about the terrorist organization's intentions. Woodward wrote that Rice did not take Tenet's July briefing seriously when Tenet and Cofer Black, then the CIA's chief of counterterrorism, met with her at the White House.

In the book, Woodward added that Tenet and Black considered the briefing the "starkest warning they had given the White House" on the threat posed by Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. But, Woodward wrote, Tenet and Black believed Rice gave them "the brush-off."

The 9/11 Commission had this information, but didn't put it in its report. Why not? I guess if you want something done right, you need some women to do it.