One year ago, thousands of Americans were erased from our lives, stolen forever from their families and their communities. They died as victims of a terrorist attack aimed at a vague target — our foreign policy, our culture, our economy and our leadership role in the world.

They died for us.

In a December speech given in commemoration of the three-month anniversary of Sept. 11, George W. Bush said, “We’ll remember the dead and what we owe them.” Now that another nine months have passed, it would seem a good time to take account of just how well we’ve kept that promise.

Without a doubt, in the months following the attacks, Americans rose to the cause of the victims and their families in extraordinary ways: record-breaking blood donations, massive charitable giving, and a torrent of person-to-person expressions of love and support. All of our regional, political and cultural differences faded, replaced by common grief. We were all Americans. We were all New Yorkers. We were all wounded.

But we owe the victims and their families something more basic than financial and moral support, more basic even than pursuing justice against the terrorists who were behind the attacks. We owe them the truth.

We owe truth that can be found only through an open and uncensored debate concerning what effect, if any, U.S. foreign policy decisions may have had in motivating the attacks. And we also owe them the full truth, without further delay, regarding the many government agency blunders we now know were committed in the months leading up to Sept. 11. We owe them all of the facts relevant to the tragedy, not just the ones the Bush administration finds it convenient to share.

As to the first point, the question is often asked: “Why do they hate us so much?” It would be comforting, I suppose, if the answer were as simple as the sound bites: Bush, speaking before Congress, said that they hate us because ‘they hate our freedoms.” Or when Dan Rather, appearing on Letterman, said, ‘they hate us for who and what we are.” Comforting, yes, but no one with any knowledge on the subject (including, I suspect, Bush and Rather) actually believes the issue is that simple.

It is, in fact, dauntingly complex. Is Noam Chomsky right when he asserts that establishing permanent U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia helped to motivate the hatred behind the terrorist attacks? Or is Christopher Hitchens closer to the mark in saying that the attacks were motivated by centuries-old grudges, largely unrelated to modern events?

I don’t claim to be an expert on Islamic fundamentalism, but this question of hate does strike me as an issue that needs to be hashed out if we are to properly respond to the terrorist threat. It also strikes me as something that, if I had lost a loved one killed in the attacks, I would want to see thoroughly explored as part of tying to understand what happened.

But for the most part, this isn’t happening. Instead, this entire topic has been declared off-limits by self-appointed patriotism hall monitors like Lynne Cheney, William Bennett and Andrew Sullivan. To even raise the possibility that U.S. foreign policy may have played some role in motivating the terrorists is, they insist, tantamount to defending the terrorists and blaming America. Since when has attempting to understand evil been tantamount to endorsing evil?

I’ll bet you the fair market value of effective psychotherapy for Ann Coulter that they don’t believe most of the people they attack are unpatriotic. But questioning loyalty is the best weapon they have in trying to prevent a full and open debate about American foreign policy, so they use it.

And why not? If that debate were ever held, people might get the crazy idea that stationing U.S. troops on Arab lands, thereby infuriating millions of Islamic fundamentalists, isn’t exactly the best way to prevent terrorist attacks against our country.

And if the public were to get that crazy idea, then they might get another crazy idea — invading Iraq, which would likely necessitate a military occupation lasting decades, is a fairly unappealing proposal.

As to what else we owe, you would think it might be easier to uncover the facts about what procedural steps could have been taken to prevent the disaster. But that discussion is off limits, too; instead, the administration and its allies have been throwing up roadblocks in front of every attempt to obtain disclosure of pertinent information.

As a result, the victims’ families have been subjected to a torturous drip, drip, drip of small leaks and half-truths. Only gradually, as bits of information have escaped the administration’s secrecy vault, has the true picture of the many missed opportunities come partially into view.

Here are just a few of the things gleaned from information torn lose from the Bush administration to date: In June of 2001, CIA Director George Tenet warned National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice that a major al Qaeda attack was “highly likely” to occur in the near future.

In July, FBI agent Kenneth Williams sent his now infamous electronic memo to FBI headquarters, warning that an unusually large number of Middle Eastern men were taking flight training. Over the next two months, a number of warnings were received from foreign governments, including Israel, suggesting that bin Laden was planning a terrorist attack.

In August, the CIA warned various government agencies that Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdar, two of the men who later participated in crashing Flight 77 into the Pentagon, should be added to the terrorist watch list.

Also in August, Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested for visa violations, after telling his flight instructor that he wanted to learn how to fly a commercial aircraft, but not how to take off or land. FBI headquarters subsequently denied a field office request to search Moussaoui’s computer. Plus, let’s not forget Bush was personally advised of the danger of imminent attacks, including the possibility these could include attempts to hijack planes.

Virtually nothing was done in response to these and other warnings. But as damning as all this seems, with so much information still being withheld, the truth about what happened during those critical months remains elusive.

In the meantime, a depressing four-step political dance has taken control of the process: 1. Story breaks; 2. Excuses offered; 3. Dick Cheney zooms in to attack; 4. Democrats let the matter drop.

Let’s look at what happened earlier this year when word broke of Bush’s briefing at his Crawford, Texas ranch about possible hijack threats. Condoleeza Rice quickly proffered the excuse that the threats were very general in nature and no one was predicting “Non-Traditional Hijacking.” Dick Cheney accused Democrats of partisanship in time of war. (The drumbeat was immediately picked up by Congressional Republicans and neo-conservative pundits.) Both the media and the Congressional Democrats rapidly backed off the story.

Though the details change, the dance remains the same.

During all this, the victim’s families have been left twisting in the wind, denied anything close to the truth they will need in order to begin the process of closure. Then, in late July 2002, they received a glimmer of hope: By a vote of 219 to 188, the House approved a measure to create an independent blue-ribbon panel to investigate the events surrounding Sept. 11. The panel was to include two representatives from the victim’s families. But the proposal appears dead in the Senate, a victim of both strong White House opposition and political intrigue within the Senate itself.

At this point, it’s hard to know when, if ever, any of us will learn the whole truth. Investigations under the auspices of the Senate and House intelligence committees are continuing, though much of the work is taking place in secret. Given the highly politicized nature of the current Congress, there’s little reason for optimism.

On the anniversary of Sept. 11, many words were spoken — good words, words that needed to be said. We heard about loss and sorrow, hope and determination. We heard much about courage: the courage of the passengers on Flight 93, who refused to allow their last moments to be turned into an act of mass murder. The courage of New York City firefighters and police officers who ran selflessly into danger trying to save the lives of others. And the courage shown in hundreds of stories of the honor and dignity demonstrated by the victims as the tragedy unfolded.

These words were spoken by important dignitaries and by ordinary men and women. And, of course, we heard them from the president. What he won’t say, however, is that a big part of what we owe them is the truth, something he has done much to deny.

Steven C. Day is an attorney practicing in Wichita, Kansas. His previous columns can be found here.