If people in power get the impression that they can get away with whatever crime or misdemeanor they're doing, they will do the crime/misdemeanor again and again.
The "getting away" will include (1) framing the debate beforehand, (2) using every tool/pressure to prevent the story from coming out, and (3) every legal procedure to avoid any formal culpability if it gets to the judicial system.
In the US, 9/11 was seen as an amazing opportunity to push very far and very hard a very nasty political agenda (step 1):
(i) push the "might is right" logic at a time when the population felt justifiably "wronged" by the attack
(ii) get rid of many "troublesome" checks and balances of the system under the pretext of the WoT, with a shaken US public not willing to question their leadership in a perceived time of national crisis
(iii) include in the WoT many neocon goals that have only a tangential link to it (they involve Arabs of some kind)
(iv) paint any critics as objective supporters of terrorists, appeasers and so forth.
Bad stuff, especially so much of it, especially when it affects many countries around the world in matters of life and death, usually comes out eventually, and it duly did here. (coming out means not the actual facts, which have been known long to those who care, but a format impossible to ignore by Joe Public - this time it was particularly spectacular).
We now are in phase 2 of the getting away with it - preventing the full story to come out; Thankfully, American democracy still works and the focus of the media is on real stuff, and we'll hopefully get to phase 3.
Phase 3 is the hardest part, because these guys will fight back and can afford the best and nastiest lawyers, if it gets to that. We'll see. But apart form legal punishment, there is a political price which can be imposed on them.
As someone mentioned earlier, the Bush administration only understands force. If they are not thoroughly destroyed (i.e. both discredited and sent away), they will keep on polluting the political landscape. This means that they must lose ALL the elections in November, not just the WH. Nothing short of a major political swing will be sufficient. If they can also be brought to justice, so much the better, but the political defeat is the first step.
A Kerry win will give the positive signal that (enough) Americans do not condone what has happened, but only a victory in Congress will give him the actual means to really do something about the current mess, and to really discredit the bush/neocon version of the Republicans.
