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From late 2003:

Kean: 8 years of mistakes led to 9/11 attacks

Terror strikes can be traced to first WTC bombing, panel chief says

WASHINGTON -- The litany of government missteps leading to the 9/11 suicide hijackings began with the response to the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the chairman of the national commission investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks said yesterday.

"It goes back all the way to the first World Trade Center bombing. We didn't follow that up and link it to Osama bin Laden," said Thomas Kean, the former New Jersey governor and chairman of the 9/11 commission.

"There were mistakes made all the way through," Kean said in an interview with The Star-Ledger yesterday. "If some of the mistakes had not been made or if the threat had been taken more seriously, it is possible the Sept. 11 tragedy could have been prevented."

But he said it was "too early to tell if people in high places failed or didn't do their job." In a later interview for ABC's "Nightline," he added, "We have no evidence that anybody high in the Clinton administration or the Bush administration did anything wrong."

On Feb. 26, 1993, a truck bomb exploded in the B-2 level garage of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six people and injuring about 1,000.

The investigation led to arrests and convictions of some radical Islamists, and the discovery of terrorist cells in the United States not directly linked to any country but united in their anti-American zeal.

The FBI also later discovered that an individual tied to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing received financial assistance from a wealthy Saudi named Osama bin Laden -- who at the time was not known to the FBI in New York. Bin Laden has since been identified as the mastermind of the 2001 strikes and numerous other terrorist attacks around the world.

In the telephone interview with The Star-Ledger, Kean did not elaborate on the 1993 bombing except to point out that it is "part of a whole thread of events" that, if pieced together, could have helped authorities be better prepared and more vigilant before Sept. 11, 2001.

On that day, four commercial airlines were hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside, killing about 3,000 people.

Kean said evidence already in the public domain shows that in the years and months leading up to Sept. 11 and on that day, there were a number of government breakdowns involving the FBI, CIA, immigration service, airline security system and the nation's air defenses.

"There were a number of points at which people, had they acted differently, we could possibly have prevented the tragedy," said Kean.

"People could have stopped the hijackers at the gate before they got on airplanes. Immigration officials could have stopped some of them at the border because their credentials were not legal in some cases," said Kean.

"People in the FBI could have bucked up the information they had to higher levels rather than let it die in the middle of the bureaucracy," he said.

A congressional intelligence committee, in a report issued last year, detailed a number of missed signals by the FBI and CIA, including numerous reports suggesting that terrorists might use airplanes as weapons.

In a television interview earlier this week, Kean said some of the people who made mistakes should have lost their jobs. He said yesterday he was referring to midlevel people at various government agencies, not top administration officials.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan yesterday disputed the idea that steps could have been taken to avert the attacks.

"As we have previously said, there is nothing that we have seen that leads us to believe that September 11th could have been prevented. We previously said that. That still stands," McClellan said.

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States is scheduled to issue its final report by May 27. In the next several months, it will hold a series of hearings with key witnesses from the FBI, CIA, Defense Department, National Security Council and others in positions of authority during the Clinton and Bush administrations.

The panel may also hear, either in private or public sessions, from President Bush and former President Bill Clinton.

Kean said he is "not prejudging" the commission's conclusions, pointing out the panel still has volumes of material to examine and about 600 additional witnesses to interview. The panel's investigators have already interviewed about 600 people, including witnesses overseas in such places as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.

"Some things will come out at the hearings that are different than the things we think we know," said Kean. "But it is all not in yet, and it would be unfair to talk about that."

"We are tracking down every conspiracy theory and a lot of questions raised by family groups," said Kean, now the president of Drew University in Madison. "From our research, we have found some things and are coming to some conclusions, but we still have a lot of work to do."

In the "Nightline" interview, Kean said it would be the commission's job to judge whether changes in security and intelligence procedures since 9/11 have been adequate to prevent a future attack. Asked whether he personally believes the nation is now safe from similar terrorism, Kean said, "No.

"In fact, unfortunately, most of the people who have testified before us say in all likelihood something will occur again," Kean said. "Unfortunately the forecasts by people who are knowledgeable in this country are not optimistic."