Posted on 06/07/2005 4:41:43 AM PDT by Libloather
Commission on 9/11 reconvenes as watchdog
By Holly Yeager in Washington
Published: June 6 2005 19:02
Members of the federal commission that investigated the September 11 terrorist attacks were back at work on Monday, following through on a pledge to monitor the US government's implementation of their recommendations.
“We wanted to avoid the fate of so many commissions that do good work and create a brief ripple and then find their report and their recommendations slipping beneath the waves,” said Jamie Gorelick, a deputy attorney-general in the Clinton administration, who chaired the session.
The 10-member bipartisan commission, which often met resistance from the Bush administration, issued its formal report nearly a year ago and formally disbanded last August.
Its meeting on Monday, held at a Washington think-tank, was the first of nine sessions scheduled under the guise of the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, a nonprofit group it has formed.
While they no longer have the power to subpoena witnesses, commission members hope their new round of hearings, called “The Unfinished Agenda”, and continued scrutiny from the families of victims of the attacks, will draw attention to what they say have been shortcomings in the execution of suggestions they made to avoid future attacks.
Ms Gorelick said the commission's members were in unanimous agreement that “the most glaring failure” of their recommendations had been the refusal of Congress to reform its oversight of national intelligence efforts. She said the failure to streamline the process for monitoring and funding the many agencies that have intelligence responsibilities would cut in half “the promise of changes” now under way in the executive branch.
Leaders of congressional intelligence committees were not immediately available for comment.
Future hearings are planned on civil liberties, foreign policy and the director of national intelligence, a new post the commission called for in its report. Congress created the intelligence post late last year. Monday's session, which focused on reform at the CIA and the FBI, took place in front of a large reproduction of the cover the commission's 567-page report, which became a national bestseller.
Richard Thornburgh, former US attorney-general, said the FBI “faces a significant challenge in developing productive working relationships” with an emerging network of state and local law enforcement agencies.
Panel members said the FBI also suffered from hiring difficulties and rapid turnover. And, like other agencies with roles in intelligence, “threat assessments are a notorious weak spot”, said Ms Gorelick.
WASHINGTON — The FBI has stumbled badly in its attempts to remake itself since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and is plagued by high turnover, poor training and its continued inability to build a modern computer system, according to a panel convened yesterday by the members of the commission that investigated the terrorist strikes.
The problems are so acute that members of the influential commission may want to reconsider whether the United States needs a separate agency to handle domestic intelligence, one Democratic member said.
Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general, said the commission was "taken aback" by the extent of FBI failures documented in several recent reports, including the FBI's scrapping of an expensive computer upgrade and its continued difficulty hiring qualified intelligence analysts. FBI Director Robert Mueller and other officials had assured the commission such problems were being addressed, commission officials said.
The remarks came during the first in a series of hearings to be held this summer by former members of the Sept. 11 commission, which was officially disbanded last year but which has reorganized as a private group.
This is an excerpt.
Can the odious Jersey Girls be far behind with their pronouncements!
I watched the 'commission meeting' all last night as I drifted in and out of sleep. Jamie looks like a clever little girl who has put on her mommie's clothes and invited her best friends for tea to play 'grown-up'. Let it go Jamie you are not gonna be Attorney General in Hilly's 'shadow govenment. I hope my taxes aren't paying for this farce. I wonder who is? Probably Sore-oss.
People we send to Washington and never leave, that's who.
Dick Thornburgh is a former good guy who whitewashed CBS' internal investigation of the liar Dan Rather.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.