Sunday, August 06, 2006
The week ahead: Oliver Stone's World Trade Center
Once again, developments on the Middle East crisis, starting with Monday's 10 AM statement to the press by President Bush at his Crawford ranch about the proposed U.N. resolution, are likely to overshadow the homeland security agenda this week.
Oliver Stone's movie about Sept. 11, "World Trade Center," is released Thursday. Ten percent of the gross take from the first five days of theatrical release will be donated to four New York-based charities that are working in different ways to memorialize the victims of the attack or provide ongoing support to their families.
Several organizations (including this one and this one) have already indicated that they will use the movie to try and promote conspiracy theories about the attacks.
All-in-all, there's likely to be quite a bit of Sept. 11 revisionism around this week, as the chairs of the blue-ribbon commission that investigated the attacks, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, are also due to publish their account of the commission's behind-the-scenes-struggles with the administration and congress. In advance of the book, there's already been one new revelation -- that the commission considered a criminal referral over the way they were decieved by NORAD and the Department of Defense.
The extent of that deception is thrown into sharp relief for your humble correspondent by the audio tapes published on the Vanity Fair Web site by a producer of the last Sept. 11 movie, Flight 93.
Now Kean tells the Washington Post that the commission was never able to ascertain why NORAD had tried to hide the real sequence of events. The Jersey Girls say that this admission "puts into question the veracity of the entire Commission’s report."
I think that's a stretch, personally, but I do think it shows there's a danger that in hyping the importance of the book, coverage of it could end up leaving question marks over Kean and Hamilton's earlier work -- the commission's own report.
What action there is on the homeland security front is likely to center around the stalled congressional debate on border security and immigration reform. The House Committee on Homeland Security holds a field hearing in Washington State on Tuesday -- one of the 19 that House GOP leaders are staging around the country to highlight their opposition to the Senate-passed bill.
The hearing will focus on the security of the northern border, and will be previewed in a Monday afternoon conference call with reporters.
The real policy question here is what will happen to the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, or WHTI, a congressionally-mandated requirement that U.S. citizens and others show a passport or other secure identity document that establishes nationality in order to enter the United States.
The Senate version of the Fiscal 2007 Homeland Security Appropriations Act contains language that would postpone the introduction of the WHTI requirement 17 months, until June 2009. But last week, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, came out opposing any postponement.
There's bound to be a lot of back-room chatter, and loads of sound and fury about this. But there's not likely to be a decision until the appropriations conference meets after the recess.
Very little else worthy of note this week. The Nixon Center is holding a briefing on Tuesday looking at the connections between Hezbollah and Iran and Syria. Israeli military official Michael Herzog, plus scholars from GW University and the International Crisis Group will speak.
Finally, top marks to the American Bar Association for trying to make their annual meeting in Hawaii as accessible to DC-based reporters as possible. Obviously, the hack would have preferred a complimentary press plane (plus five-star accommodation), but failing that a Web site with streaming video and downloadable audio isn't a bad alternative.
Oliver Stone's movie about Sept. 11, "World Trade Center," is released Thursday. Ten percent of the gross take from the first five days of theatrical release will be donated to four New York-based charities that are working in different ways to memorialize the victims of the attack or provide ongoing support to their families.
Several organizations (including this one and this one) have already indicated that they will use the movie to try and promote conspiracy theories about the attacks.
All-in-all, there's likely to be quite a bit of Sept. 11 revisionism around this week, as the chairs of the blue-ribbon commission that investigated the attacks, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, are also due to publish their account of the commission's behind-the-scenes-struggles with the administration and congress. In advance of the book, there's already been one new revelation -- that the commission considered a criminal referral over the way they were decieved by NORAD and the Department of Defense.
The extent of that deception is thrown into sharp relief for your humble correspondent by the audio tapes published on the Vanity Fair Web site by a producer of the last Sept. 11 movie, Flight 93.
Now Kean tells the Washington Post that the commission was never able to ascertain why NORAD had tried to hide the real sequence of events. The Jersey Girls say that this admission "puts into question the veracity of the entire Commission’s report."
I think that's a stretch, personally, but I do think it shows there's a danger that in hyping the importance of the book, coverage of it could end up leaving question marks over Kean and Hamilton's earlier work -- the commission's own report.
What action there is on the homeland security front is likely to center around the stalled congressional debate on border security and immigration reform. The House Committee on Homeland Security holds a field hearing in Washington State on Tuesday -- one of the 19 that House GOP leaders are staging around the country to highlight their opposition to the Senate-passed bill.
The hearing will focus on the security of the northern border, and will be previewed in a Monday afternoon conference call with reporters.
The real policy question here is what will happen to the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, or WHTI, a congressionally-mandated requirement that U.S. citizens and others show a passport or other secure identity document that establishes nationality in order to enter the United States.
The Senate version of the Fiscal 2007 Homeland Security Appropriations Act contains language that would postpone the introduction of the WHTI requirement 17 months, until June 2009. But last week, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, came out opposing any postponement.
There's bound to be a lot of back-room chatter, and loads of sound and fury about this. But there's not likely to be a decision until the appropriations conference meets after the recess.
Very little else worthy of note this week. The Nixon Center is holding a briefing on Tuesday looking at the connections between Hezbollah and Iran and Syria. Israeli military official Michael Herzog, plus scholars from GW University and the International Crisis Group will speak.
Finally, top marks to the American Bar Association for trying to make their annual meeting in Hawaii as accessible to DC-based reporters as possible. Obviously, the hack would have preferred a complimentary press plane (plus five-star accommodation), but failing that a Web site with streaming video and downloadable audio isn't a bad alternative.
