From the 9-11 Commission website

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission), an independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional legislation and the signature of President George W. Bush in late 2002, is chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks. The Commission is also mandated to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks.

(my emphasis)

Despite its clear mandate, the 911 Commission has received less-than-full cooperation from the Bush administration.

WASHINGTON - Frustrated by Bush administration restrictions, a former senator said yesterday he might quit the special commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Ex-Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), now president of New York's New School University, told the Daily News that resigning is "on my list of possibilities" because the administration continues to block the full panel's access to top intelligence officials and materials.

"I am no longer ... feeling comfortable that I'm going to be able to read and process what I need in order to participate in writing a report about how it was that 19 men defeated every single defensive system the U.S. put up to kill 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11," said Kerrey.

NY Daily News article

Meanwhile, other commission members have expressed increasing frustration with what must be characterized as White House stonewalling:

Washington -- President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have placed strict limits on the private interviews they will grant to the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, saying they will meet only with the panel's top two officials and that Bush will submit to only a single hour of questioning, panel members said Wednesday.

The commission, which has 10 members and is bipartisan, said it also had been informed by the White House that Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, had rejected its request that she testify in public about the intelligence reports she received before the attacks.

Democratic members of the panel said the administration's moves raised new questions about its willingness to cooperate with the commission, which is investigating intelligence and law enforcement blunders in the months and years before the attacks. The White House initially opposed creating the panel.

article

As the horrifying events of Black Tuesday, September 11, 2001 unfolded, Pres. Bush just sat listening to grade school kids in a Florida school room. At the back of the classroom, press secretary Ari Fleischer held up a hand-scrawled instruction:

Don't say anything yet.

Subsequently, National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice claimed that nobody could have imagined that hijacked airliners could be used as weapons, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary in the public record.

In light of the 911 Commission's mandate - "...to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks." - and given the preceding, it's not difficult to imagine a couple obvious questions commission members might like to ask of Pres. Bush and Dr. Rice.

Some commission members must be wondering if they'll ever get a chance to pose such questions in the public record, and Pres. Bush must be wondering how so many conspiracy theorists ended up on his hand-picked commission.

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