Posted on 12/17/2003 5:23:34 PM PST by Hal1950
For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.
"This is a very, very important part of history and we've got to tell it right," said Thomas Kean.
"As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done," he said. "This was not something that had to happen."
Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame.
"There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean said.
To find out who failed and why, the commission has navigated a political landmine, threatening a subpoena to gain access to the president's top-secret daily briefs. Those documents may shed light on one of the most controversial assertions of the Bush administration – that there was never any thought given to the idea that terrorists might fly an airplane into a building.
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," said national security adviser Condoleeza Rice on May 16, 2002.
"How is it possible we have a national security advisor coming out and saying we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI records from 1991 stating that this is a possibility," said Kristen Breitweiser, one of four New Jersey widows who lobbied Congress and the president to appoint the commission.
The widows want to know why various government agencies didn't connect the dots before Sept. 11, such as warnings from FBI offices in Minnesota and Arizona about suspicious student pilots.
"If you were to tell me that two years after the murder of my husband that we wouldn't have one question answered, I wouldn't believe it," Breitweiser said.
Kean admits the commission also has more questions than answers.
Asked whether we should at least know if people sitting in the decision-making spots on that critical day are still in those positions, Kean said, "Yes, the answer is yes. And we will."
Kean promises major revelations in public testimony beginning next month from top officials in the FBI, CIA, Defense Department, National Security Agency and, maybe, President Bush and former President Clinton.
This man is not after the truth, he's gonna do what he had already made up his mind to do before he even started this 'investigation'.
That wouldn't have been enough. He would have had to stop it indefinitely because he didn't know when or even if it was coming. But we won't hear Dan report that side of things.
Me, too!
Until Bush and co. come clean about the Saudis and 9-11, they deserve to be taken to task.
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," said national security adviser Condoleeza Rice on May 16, 2002.
If the weight of the '9/11 could have been avoided' argument rests on this, pardon me while I laugh my ass off.
Assessing that a enemy may have a certain capability is part of the intelligence process, but it's not even remotely actionable. Our enemies COULD do anything from shooting down 747s with SA-14s to dumping poison in the water supply. Some of them COULD fire ballistic missiles at us. Someone COULD shoot at the President with a sniper rifle while he's in his motorcade.
That's not the issue.
Threats can be prevented with ADVANCE WARNING, but lacking that, you can either take protective measures or preemptive action.
Preventative measures sound nice, but think about it. This is POST 9/11 yet we still can't get armed pilots or passenger profiling. The best we've been able to come up with is the Patriot Act and the TSA 'granny checking squads'. How would anyone have gone for it PRE 9/11?
Preemptive action? Good luck selling that one. Apparently, the 'enlightened' position is that we should wait for our enemies to strike us, and then hold a commission to analyze how they snuck it past the goalie.
Hence this report.
Since this report suggests no ADVANCE WARNING nor even a CREDIBLE THREAT (remember that one), this is just an exercise in historical speculation. If it was so damned obvious that 9/11 was coming, why did it take this long to get all the information together and produce this assessment? This should have been readily apparent years ago.
-----OF COURSE HE IS!!
Doc
Are you suggesting that Fox had information that this is a possible tactic our enemies would use? Is this some kind of cover up?
What did Fox know, and when did they know it? An interesting theory I've heard is that they got a call from Halliburton prior to 9/11. We'll I've had enough! No blood for ratings! Who's with me?!?!
(Man, I should take this to DU, they'd eat it up like candy.)
LVM
Until Clinton and co. come clean about TWA800 and Vince Foster they deserve to be taken to task.
BlaBlaBla
Take it one step further. Bush didn't collect this intelligence himself. There is a huge apparatus out there that takes in the data, analyzes it, and puts it all together. So, before it gets anywhere near Bush's desk, it has to pass through all kinds of hands, many of them old Clinton hacks.
If Bush had this information and sat on it, it would mean that a vast dual winged conspiracy is sitting on an immense secret. Even though any one of them could achieve immortal fame and fortune by blowing the whistle, literally hundreds of people have decided to put aside their differences and risk everything for the good of the conspiracy.
Nothing like having an unshakable trust in all of your co conspirators, many of whom you haven't even met. Yep, as much as they probably hate Bush personally, their unshakable belief in the cause of random bilateral conspiracies helps them all work together and keep the faith.
The majority of the government was still Democrat at the time of the attack and it still is today
I hope you fully support the War on Terror, including our actions in Iraq which are intended to prevent whatever other dastardly deeds that the terrorists, including Saddam Hussein, had planned with our destruction in mind.
You have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight to state flatly that 9/11 was preventable. Perhaps if Clinton had taken bin Laden into custody, as was offered twice, it would have been. Also the Clinton efforts to deal with Saddam were half-hearted and clearly ineffectual. But the implication with the way THIS article is written, no matter what the intent of Kean's remarks was (and it is not clear to me he refers to the Bush administration), is that Bush is to blame, when he is not.
We KNOW what happened. We know the FBI and CIA could not share info BY LAW, something which would not have been changable before the attack. We KNOW Clinton slashed intelligence funding and resources and IGNORED terrorism as an issue.
To blame Bush because he wasn't in the White House that morning is ridiculous.
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