| Senior Member Join Date: May 2000 Location: Greater Boston Area Gender:  Posts: 4,024 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Points: 5,041.00 Bank: 500.00 Total Points: 5,541.00 | 
Here are some myriad sources which I picked before actually reading them from News.google.com Fox News BBC Al-Jazeera The report seems to place broad blame across the whole system. Here's what Reuters is saying. Quote: 9/11 inquiry damns US government
Thu 22 July, 2004 20:07
By Alan Elsner and Tabassum Zakaria
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The September 11 commission on Thursday criticised both the Bush and Clinton administrations for failing to fully grasp or effectively combat the threat posed by al Qaeda and recommended a radical shake-up of U.S. intelligence to meet future dangers.
The final report issued unanimously by the 10-member commission pointed to "deep institutional failings" and missed opportunities to thwart the hijackings carried out by al Qaeda operatives, which killed almost 3,000 people in 2001.
"This was a failure of policy, management, capability and, above all, a failure of imagination," said commission chairman Tom Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey.
He said the goal was to prevent further attacks, which were expected. "Every expert with whom we spoke told us an attack of even greater magnitude is now possible and even probable. We do not have the luxury of time. We must prepare and we must act."
The 567-page report said terrorism was not the overriding national security concern for the U.S. government under either the Clinton or Bush administration before the attack.
It recommended the appointment of a national intelligence director and creation of a national counter-terrorism centre to better share information and coordinate action against future terrorist threats.
"The National Intelligence Director should oversee national intelligence centers to provide all-source analysis and plan intelligence operations for the whole government on major problems," the report said.
Numerous other recommendations included declassifying intelligence spending, upgrading the computer technology used by U.S. intelligence, recruiting, training and retaining more skilled analysts and linguists for the FBI and reorganising congressional oversight.
BUSH WELCOMES REPORT
President George W. Bush, who on Wednesday said he had "no inkling that terrorists were about to attack our country," called the report "solid and sound" but did not discuss its findings. He said he would study the recommendations, many of which he described as common sense and constructive.
But some Democrats were swift to attack the president. "When the president said that he didn't have an inkling that something could happen, well that just can't be right," said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy said the report made clear that the Bush administration did not give fighting al Qaeda the high priority it should have had either before or after the attacks.
The commission of five Republicans and five Democrats took pains to spread responsibility for the failures widely and not to name names. Commission member Jamie Gorelick told Reuters, "We thought it was our job to lay out the facts. When you read the facts, you see who's responsible."
But the report, coming less than four months before the November 2 presidential election, was obviously highly sensitive for Bush.
Bush's challenger, John Kerry, urged swift implementation of the recommendations. "If I am elected president and there has still not been sufficient progress on these issues, I will not wait a single day more. I will lead," he said.
The bulk of the report consisted of a detailed narrative of the years and months leading up to the attacks. In the summer of 2001 -- the so-called summer of threat -- many officials feared that "something terrible" was planned, the report said.
ASHCROFT NEVER ASKED
In the face of intelligence warnings that were numerous but not specific, Attorney General John Ashcroft assumed the FBI was taking necessary action and never asked the agency what it was doing or gave it specific instructions.
"Domestic agencies never mobilised in response the threat. They did not have direction and did not have a plan to institute. The borders were not hardened. Transportation systems were not fortified ... The public was not warned," the report said.
None of the steps that were taken disturbed or delayed planning for the attack, Kean said.
CIA Director George Tenet stepped down this month under a barrage of complaints about intelligence failures before September 11 and before last year's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The report listed 10 missed opportunities by the CIA and the FBI, four in August 2001, to interpret or share information that could have helped them penetrate the September 11 plot.
As late as September 4, 2001, a week before the suicide hijacking attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush administration had not decided whether Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda operation was a "big deal."
"The 9/11 attacks were a shock, but they should not have come as a surprise. Islamist extremists had given plenty of warning that they meant to kill Americans indiscriminately and in large numbers," the report said.
The report concluded there was no collaboration between Iraq and al Qaeda, one of Bush' central arguments for launching an invasion of Iraq last year.
It did list numerous links between al Qaeda and Iran but said there was no evidence that the Iranians were aware of the planning for the attack.
The commission sharply criticised Congress for failing in its oversight role on terrorism and intelligence issues. | |
07-22-2004, 05:24 PM 
