9/11 Panel Blames 'Institutional Failings'

Yahoo! News ^ | 7/21/2004 | Hope Yen, AP Writer

[vrwc1]

WASHINGTON - The Sept. 11 commission's final report concludes the hijackers exploited "deep institutional failings within our government" over a long period but does not blame President Bush (news - web sites) or former President Clinton (news - web sites) for the mistakes, according to administration officials familiar with the findings.

The report, being released Thursday, describes the patience and determination of the hijackers and said they explored weaknesses in airline and border procedures, even taking test flights to see when cockpit doors were open.

White House officials and congressional leaders were briefed on the report's findings, and Bush is to receive a copy of the 575-page report on Thursday.

"It does not place blame on particular individuals or particular incidents, but in fact it identifies institutional failings that have grown up over time about the way our government is organized," one official said.

It concludes that Bush and Clinton took the threat of al-Qaida seriously and were "genuinely concerned about the danger posed by al-Qaida," the official said. It finds that neither president was to blame for failing to stop the attacks, which were the culmination of years of planning.

Less than four months before the presidential election, the commission's work already has ignited partisan debate over whether Bush took sufficient steps to deal with terrorism in the first year of his administration.

As expected, the report will call for creating a Cabinet-level national director of intelligence with authority over the CIA, FBI and other agencies. The White House administration is reserving judgment on that recommendation, and officials doubt it could be approved by Congress this year.

Four administration officials briefed reporters on the content of the report on condition of anonymity because it has not been publicly released.

"Rather than finding that there was a failure at the presidential level, what they find though is that there are failings and that there were deep institutional failings within our government," an official said. "And that's what they really examine at some length over a long period of time — that there were a variety of factors spanning many years and many administrations that contributed to a failure to share information amongst agencies for both legal and policy reasons."

In particular, the official said, the commission found the FBI was not set up to collect intelligence domestically, in part because of civil liberties concerns.

[jwalsh07]

Nice rant. Can I use it in an email?

[deport]

Yep... not mine.... got it in an email myself..... so have at it.

[mass55th]

I like your tag line. D-Day was always used to denote the day of an operation/landing during WWII. Operation Overlord on June 6th, 1944 was D-Day. June 7th was then D-Day plus one, and so on. With that in mind, this is FR Day plus one for you.

[Petronski]

Here's the typical DU take on this tonight:

911 victim's families are going to go ape shit over this... why the need to include Clinton in the findings? wasn't on his watch..and to cover himself, Gore personally handed the Hart-Rudman Commission Report to Cheney..hrmph! nada-zero...whitewash!

Unfrigginbelievable.

[plain talk]

Nobody should be blamed or fired. Only an idiot would not agree that it was indeed institutional failings that led to 9/11 and our entire society was lax and spoiled. Unfortunately we didn't need this phoney 9/11 commission to tell us what we already knew.

[take]

Anything the 9/11 comission releases is compromised. It is a failed effort because they didn't have everything.

[goodnesswins]

ROFL.....THANKS, Mike.....so much....for the laugh...I really needed.....ROFL!

[DianeDePoitiers]

This leak bears a remarkable similarity to another leak that was done to damage Kerry - in terms of modus operandi. Remember when Wesley Clark leaked the story about Kerry and the intern, and then the Dems tried to blame it on Republican "smears"? I'm betting that Clinton did the leak on Berger. He has admitted that he already knew Berger was being investigated. According to Dick Morris in an article in the NY Post, there is a battle going on for control of the Democratic Party between the Clintons and Kennedy/Kerry. The Clintons desperately want Kerry to lose but cannot be open about it.

[AJFavish]

You will enjoy this:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=10324

Regards,
Allan J. Favish
http://www.allanfavish.com

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

A democratic guy said (On MSNBC Scarborough show ) that Berger released the info under pressure by the Kerry people when they learned that he was under investigation......

[Southack]

"911 victim's families are going to go ape shit over this... why the need to include Clinton in the findings?"

The Left continues to lose its grasp of politics. Former President Clinton was mentioned in the 9/11 report in order to exonerate him. Had he not been mentioned, and had the report only cleared President Bush, then WJC would have been hung out to dry.

Sadly, the idiots over at DU don't even understand when the breaks go their way. They wanted their Hail Mary long-shot scandal to come through against GWB, and now they are simply being reactionarily mad about the report clearing him too, rather than being savvy enough to understand that it cleared their Man who was in office for 5 years of the 5 years and 8 months that the 9/11 operation was in planning and implementation.

Former VP Gore, in particular, with his airport commission, and Senator Daschle, with his airline lobbyist wife who had the metal detectors changed nationwide to inferior models, come to mind as specific vulnerabilities for the Dems.

7 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires

[nopardons]

Thanks for the ping.:-)

[Sea2ShiningSea]

Thanks for the ping-a-ling!

[Diddle E. Squat]

History will rank the 9/11 Commission's findings on par with the Warren Commission's...

[Howlin]

Story on Berger: Leaks=bad

Story on Bush: Whistleblower=good!

[maica]

Lawrence O'Donnell of Scarborough said the he believes the Kerry campaign got it out, so that it cannot become a bomb in Sept or Oct.

That is the theory that I have bet on as well.

Rs had no reason to leak it on this week when Kerry is AWOL.

[maica]

on Scarborough, not 'of'

[LowOiL]

BTTT... Lotsa money spent on nothing bumperoo...

[CFC__VRWC]

I would not be surprised if the Democrats made a deal to not trash Bush or Clinton in the main report. But have the Denocrats done a minority report that Blames Bush first and last and in the middle for good measure?.

That's what I'm expecting. I think we saw a preview of their strategy last week with the Senate Intelligence Committee report release.

They'll release their "bipartisan" report that specifically does not trash President Bush, and then Gorelick, Roemer, Hamilton, Kerrey and Ben Veniste will immediately take over the press conference and proceed to declare how they feel that the evidence overwhelmingly shows that Bush bears the sole responsibility for the attacks, and how they were "pressured" by the Republicans on the commission (and probably by Dick Cheney as well for good measure) into toning down their findings for the final report. Right after that, they will fan out to all the networks and spend the rest of the day playing musical chairs on all the shows, along with the Jersey Girls, Madeline Halfbright, Terry McAwful, and as many Congressional Democrats and Kerry campaign staffers as will fit onto the sets, all spreading the word that it's all Bush's fault.

The end result, incredibly, will probably be that in the presentation to the public, the report assigns all of the blame for the 9/11 attacks to the Bush Administration, totally vindicates the Clinton Administration, but yet is portrayed as being too soft on Bush! Kerry can then drone at the convention about how a "truly independent commission" is needed to get to the bottom of things, and the Rats will add this "issue" to their campaign going forward.