In a devastating New York Times op-ed today, 9/11 Commission leaders Tom Keane and Lee Hamilton accused the CIA of stonewalling their panel. The chairman and co-chairman alleged that those in the Bush administration who knew about videotapes of CIA detainee interrogations but failed to inform the 9/11 panel "obstructed our investigation." But lost in their historical record is one other inconvenient truth: President Bush tried to stonewall the 9/11 Commission from the very beginning.

In their op-ed, Keane and Hamilton mince no words about the Bush administration's refusal to either disclose the existence of the tapes or provide access to the detainees themselves:

The commission's mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes - and did not tell us about them - obstructed our investigation.

There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the C.I.A. - or the White House - of the commission's interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot. Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations...

...A meeting on Jan. 21, 2004, with Mr. Tenet, the White House counsel, the secretary of defense and a representative from the Justice Department also resulted in the denial of commission access to the detainees. Once again, videotapes were not mentioned.

But while the 9/11 Commission was indeed a "a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country," it was also one initially opposed by President Bush.

As CBS reported on May 23, 2002, President Bush had no intention of following in the footsteps of FDR and LBJ by convening an independent commission to study the national disaster of 9/11 which transpired on his watch:

President Bush took a few minutes during his trip to Europe Thursday to voice his opposition to establishing a special commission to probe how the government dealt with terror warnings before Sept. 11.

Mr. Bush said the matter should be dealt with by congressional intelligence committees.

CBS News Correspondent Bill Plante reports that Mr. Bush said the investigation should be confined to Congress because it deals with sensitive information that could reveal sources and methods of intelligence. Therefore, he said, the congressional investigation is "the best place" to probe the events leading up to the terrorist attacks.

"I have great confidence in our FBI and CIA," the President said in Berlin, adding that he feels the agencies are already improving their information sharing practices.

But as with the later Iraq WMD investigation, President Bush flip-flopped and reversed course. Bush's political cowardice was only overcome by the overwhelming demands of public opinion. As ABC News detailed on September 20, 2002:

Reversing course, President Bush said today he now supports establishing an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Momentum for such a commission has grown in recent months.

(It is worth noting that his initial choice for panel head was Henry Kissinger, architect of the unconstitutional invasion of Cambodia in 1970. Ironically Kissinger just last month authored a stinging criticism of the CIA for its revised Iran National Intelligence Estimate.)

Bush's stonewalling of the 9/11 Commission extended far beyond trying to extinguish the panel at its birth. President Bush refused to testify under oath before the panel, with his testimony delivered jointly with Vice President Cheney. And under the ruse of "executive privilege" (or what press secretary Scott McClellan on March 9, 2004 called "a matter of principle, not a matter of preference") the President tried to prevent then-National Security Adviser Condi Rice from appearing before Keane and Hamilton. But Bush again reversed course, caving to public pressure just three weeks later over Rice's testimony in order to provide what Karen Hughes disingenuously referred to as "full cooperation."

(As an epilogue, historians - and comedians - will be forever thankful for Bush's ultimate decision to allow Rice to appear before the 9/11 Commission. Her response to panel members about the title of the infamous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) warning of potential attacks by Al Qaeda is now sadly the stuff of legend: "I believe the title was, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'")

No doubt, there will be heated discussion over Keane and Hamilton's conclusion:

What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction.

That obstructionism from the Bush administration, of course, started on Day 1.

UPDATE: Attorney General Michael Mukasey today announced a criminal probe into the CIA tapes scandal.