911 panel report: 'We must act'
Reforms 'need to be enacted and enacted speedily'
Thursday, July 22, 2004 Posted: 1:49 PM EDT (1749 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...ort/index.html
The unanimous report of the 10-member, bipartisan panel found that neither Bush nor predecessor President Bill Clinton grasped the depth of the terrorist threat posed before the suicide hijackings that killed almost 3,000 people.
"Given the character and pace of their policy efforts, we do not believe they fully understood just how many people al Qaeda might kill, and how soon it might do it," the commission found. "At some level that is hard to define, we believe the threat had not yet become compelling."
It also said there were limits to what the CIA was able to achieve by using proxies to try to capture Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants in Afghanistan.
Commissioners found that terrorism was not the overriding national security concern for the U.S. government before the attacks and that missed opportunities to thwart the hijackings were symptoms of a broader inability by the government to adapt to new challenges.
KEY FINDINGS
U.S. leaders did not understand the "gravity of the threat."
The United States wasn't prepared to meet al Qaeda's challenges.
Terrorism wasn't the chief security concern of the Bush or Clinton administrations.
Failures to thwart 9/11 highlight agencies' inability to adapt to new problems.
CIA effectiveness was limited by use of intermediaries to pursue Osama bin Laden.
Information and analysis wasn't shared across agencies.