9/11 Commission - Page 2 - Big Big Forums

kvmj · 04-23-2004, 07:32 AM

I have to believe that this poll comes from some ultra conservative site and is therefore worthless.

Richard Clarke is considered a credible witness. His account is backed up by others. The praise given the Bush administration to which you refer is probably the first time ever that an administration official has tried to spin events in a more positive light.

Jolie Rouge · 04-23-2004, 12:51 PM

Quote:

kvmj : I have to believe that this poll comes from some ultra conservative site and is therefore worthless.

The site is www.campainbuilder.com and is unabashedly conservative. If however it had supported some view that you did agree with, it would be considered definative. I actually posted it as a joke, as it is very biased.

Quote:

Richard Clarke is considered a credible witness. His account is backed up by others. The praise given the Bush administration to which you refer is probably the first time ever that an administration official has tried to spin events in a more positive light.

Do I detect a note of sarcasm ?

I have posted such information as it has been found on the internet. I found information critical of the present *and* past administrations. Clarke advised several Presidents; was Bush supposed to do in eight months what Clinton neglected in eight years ? All polititicians and "players" have their own adgendas - we have to figure out what it is based on information available.

Please post information and articles relevant to the issue at hand; I would be interested in your views and insights.

Jolie Rouge · 04-29-2004, 04:10 PM

/11 Panel Quizzes Bush, Cheney for Hours

By DEB RIECHMANN

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...20040429LLJ102

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney answered questions Thursday from Sept. 11 commissioners trying to learn how followers of Osama bin Laden pulled off the worst terrorist attack in American history. ``I answered every question,'' Bush said after the session lasting over three hours.

Speaking with reporters in the Rose Garden of the White House, Bush declined to say what questions the commission members specifically asked. But he did say the session was cordial. ``I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I took the time...I enjoyed it.''

The 10 commissioners gathered around Bush and Cheney, who were seated on chairs near the fireplace in the Oval Office for the unprecedented closed-door meeting that was off-limits to all but White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and two members of his staff.

Asked why Bush felt it necessary to appear jointly with Cheney, the president vigorously defended that arrangement.

``If we had something to hide, we wouldn't have met with them in the first place,'' Bush said. Critics have suggested the two men met together to make certain there were no discrepancies in their statements.

While he declined to say what the questions focused on, Bush told reporters, ``I was never advised by my counsel not to answer anything. I answered every question they asked.''

``There was a lot of interest about how to better protect America,'' he said. ``They're very interested in the recommendations that they're going to lay out and I'm interested in that as well.''

``I was impressed by the questions. I think it helped them understand how I think and how I run the White House and how we deal with threats,'' Bush said.

In a statement issued by the panel after the meeting, commissioners said they found the president and vice president ``forthcoming and candid.''

``The information they provided will be of great assistance to the Commission as it completes its final report. We thank the president and the vice president for their continued cooperation with the commission,'' the statement said.

One commissioner, Jim Thompson, said the questions included everything ``across the board'' that had been in public hearings. ``The president was asked the vast majority of the questions and he answered them. There was no questions the president or vice president did not answer.''

``There was some laughter from time to time. The president is a bit of a tease,'' Thompson said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. ``There were no tense moments. I thought the president gave a five-star performance. I wish the American people could have seen it.''

04/29/04 13:49

Jolie Rouge · 05-07-2004, 05:32 PM

Tape of 9/11 Controllers Was Destroyed

By LESLIE MILLER

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...0034846551.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - Air traffic controllers who handled two of the hijacked flights on Sept. 11, 2001, recorded their experiences shortly after the planes crashed into the World Trade Center but a supervisor destroyed the tape, government investigators said Thursday.

A report by Transportation Department Inspector General Kenneth Mead said the manager for the New York-area air traffic control center asked the controllers to make the recordings a few hours after the crashes in belief they would be important for law enforcement.

Investigators never heard it. Sometime between December 2001 and February 2002, an unidentified Federal Aviation Administration quality assurance manager crushed the cassette case in his hand, cut the tape into small pieces and threw them away in multiple trash cans, the report said.

``We were told that nobody ever listened to, transcribed or duplicated the tape,'' Mead said in the report sent to Sen. John McCain. The Arizona Republican asked the inspector general to look into how well the agency was cooperating with the independent panel investigating the attacks.

Neither manager told anyone outside the center - including their superiors and law enforcement officials - about the tape's existence, the report said. The Sept. 11 commission learned of the tape during interviews with New York air traffic control center personnel between September and October.

The destruction occurred even though the FAA sent a directive three days after the hijackings: ``Retain and secure until further notice ALL Administrative/Operational data and records. ... If a question arises whether or not you should retain the data, RETAIN IT.''

The quality assurance manager said he destroyed the tape because he felt it violated FAA policy calling for written statements from controllers who have handled a plane involved in an accident or other serious incident. He also said he felt the controllers were not in the right frame of mind to have consented to the taping, the report said.

The manager said he waited several months to destroy the tape because he promised the local controllers' union vice president that he would get rid of it once the control center's formal accident package was complete, the report said. That package was sent to FAA headquarters in November 2001.

The report did not characterize the tape's destruction as an attempted cover-up. But it said the recording could have helped provide a fuller explanation of what happened on Sept. 11.

``What those six controllers recounted in a group setting on Sept. 11, in their own voices, about what transpired that morning, are no longer available to assist any investigation or inform the public,'' the report said.

Mead said his office referred the case to federal prosecutors in New York, but they declined to prosecute because of lack of criminal intent.

FAA spokesman Greg Martin said the quality control manager was disciplined for violating the directive to keep everything relating to the hijackings and to turn them over to investigators. He said privacy considerations prevented him from disclosing how the manager was disciplined.

Martin said the FAA believes the tape is consistent with written statements and other materials provided to investigators. It ``would not have added in any significant way to the information already provided to investigators and members of the 9-11 commission,'' Martin said.

The report said the controllers who made the tape had either talked to the hijacked planes that crashed into the World Trade Center or were working radar positions that intersected with the jetliners' flight paths.

The report concluded that there was ``some measure of consistency'' between witness statements later taken from the controllers and what was recorded on the tape. That conclusion was based on interviews with the six controllers and all 10 witnesses to the taping, and on sketchy notes taken during the tape recording. Also retained were radar data and recordings of radio transmissions from the cockpit.

John Carr, president of the air traffic controllers' union, said he did not know whether the manager did the right thing by destroying the tape. ``It was a traumatic time for him,'' he said. ``He was the custodian for the darkest moment in our nation's history.''

On the Net:

Federal Aviation Administration: www.faa.gov

05/07/04 00:34

Jolie Rouge · 05-15-2004, 12:33 AM

Report: Communications Broke Down on 9/11

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/...sept_11200.jpg

NEW YORK (AP) - Draft reports from the federal Sept. 11 Commission say emergency workers performed with bravery at the World Trade Center but were not coordinated in their efforts, according to a published report.

Among the communication breakdowns was a warning from a police helicopter that the north tower was about to fall that went unheard by firefighters, The New York Times reported Friday, citing people who have seen some or all of the findings.

The draft findings, subject to revision, were prepared by commission staff in preparation for hearings scheduled for next week in New York. The reports also cite unreliable communication between fire chiefs and firefighters in the building, who relied on hand-held radios when they believed a repeater, which boosts radio signals, was broken.

The Times said the commission's findings suggest the repeater may have actually been working, though the significance of that finding is unclear.

Other problems cited include reports of public address announcements telling people to stay in the south tower after the north tower was hit. In addition, the reports say, tenants had not been told during fire drills that they should not go to the roof during fires, so some who were trapped tried to escape that way.

The reports say admirable performance by civilian fire wardens and building staff, improved stairway lighting and glowing paint along the steps in the trade center, and the preparation of tenants for an emergency helped in the evacuation, the Times said.

Portions of the reports, expected to be made public during next week's hearings in New York, were shared with police and fire officials, the city's corporation counsel, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey officials and lawyers from former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's consulting firm, the Times said.

05/14/04 09:20

Jolie Rouge · 05-18-2004, 06:51 PM

/11 Panel Scolds Ex-Police, Fire Chiefs

By DEVLIN BARRETT

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...65.htm&sc=1110

NEW YORK (AP) - The former police and fire chiefs who were lionized after the World Trade Center attack came under harsh criticism Tuesday from the Sept. 11 commission, with one member saying the departments' lack of cooperation was scandalous and ``not worthy of the Boy Scouts.''

Commission members, in New York for an emotional two-day hearing, focused on how leaders of the two departments failed to share information effectively in the early frantic moments after two hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center.

Former fire commissioner Thomas Von Essen and former police chief Bernard Kerik shot back with infuriated responses to commissioner John Lehman's questions, the strongest of a series of pointed statements from the panel. '`I couldn't disagree with you more strongly,'' Von Essen replied. ``I think it's outrageous that you make a statement like that.'' Outside the hearing, he called the questioning ``despicable.''

Families of Sept. 11 victims applauded the tough questioning and shook their heads sadly as the panel enumerated a litany of communication breakdowns between the departments. Family members sporadically mocked and booed Von Essen, Kerik and Richard Sheirer, former Office of Emergency Management commissioner, and they wept earlier in the day as they watched videotape of the buildings collapsing.

As Von Essen testified, Sally Regenhard - who lost her firefighter son - held up a piece of paper reading: ``LIES.''

The 10-member bipartisan panel has been holding hearings over the last year, including high-profile meetings in Washington last month about intelligence failures, to examine what led to the attacks and determine ways to avoid future attacks. The panel will issue its final report July 26.

Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was scheduled to testify at the second day of hearings Wednesday.

While the New York hearings - held 1 1/2 miles from ground zero - were meant to examine problems in the city's emergency response system, officials also were asked about what they knew about terrorism threats in the months before Sept. 11.

The former director of the World Trade Center told the commission that he knew nothing of Osama bin Laden's terror network until the summer before the attacks, and was never privy to FBI intelligence that Islamic terrorists might hijack U.S. planes.

Alan Reiss said he first heard about bin Laden's al-Qaida network when ex-FBI agent John O'Neill was hired in the summer of 2001 as head of security at the trade center. O'Neill, who had hunted bin Laden for years, was one of the 2,749 people killed in the attack. ``I was aware of the plot against some of the other Port Authority tunnels and the U.N.,'' Reiss testified. ``But we were never briefed'' by the FBI.

Reiss also said he was more focused on fending off possible bioterrorism attacks such as anthrax, spending more than $100,000 to protect the building from such an assault. ``We felt this (anthrax) was the next coming wave,'' he said. ``We had developed plans on how to isolate the air conditioning system and shut it down but never did we have a thought of what happened on 9-11.''

Reiss bristled under questioning from commission member Bob Kerrey, who asked him if he is angry that ``things might have been different had they (FBI) trusted you enough'' to deliver important intelligence. Reiss said he was not angry at the FBI, but rather at ``19 people in an airplane,'' referring to the hijackers.

Kerrey said he shared Reiss' anger. ``These 19 people ... defeated the INS, they defeated the Customs (Department), they defeated the FBI, they defeated the CIA,'' the former Nebraska senator said as family members of the victims chimed in with the loudest applause of the morning.

But Kerrey said he was more concerned that ``we may not be delivering the key intelligence, the facts, the information'' to the first responders. Later, the miscommunication was termed ``a scandal'' by Lehman, who then complained it was ``not worthy of the Boy Scouts, let alone this great city.''

Family members cheered when commission member Slade Gorton launched an aggressive line of questioning about the city's 911 emergency system to Kerik, Von Essen and Sheirer. When the agency heads tried to defer to their successors, Gorton refused to let them. ``I'm asking ... what was going on Sept. 11,'' Gorton said to applause from the families.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly was asked if the city was prepared to handle a chemical attack with 10,000 injuries. ``I would say no,'' he replied.

For some family members, it was a day for reflection rather than protest. Terry McGovern, whose mother died in the south tower, said she came away with an understanding of what happened that day. ``For me, it was reliving what my mother heard, what she saw, what her last moments were,'' McGovern said.

The hearing began with a commission report recounting how city officials were forced to make life-and-death decisions based on incomplete communications, leading to some of the deaths in the twin 110-story buildings.

The communication problems resulted in incidents such as the deaths of Port Authority workers told to wait for help on the 64th floor of one tower. Many of them died when the building collapsed.

Communications breakdowns also prevented announcements to evacuate from reaching civilians in one of the buildings. One survivor recounted calling 911 from the 44th floor of the south tower, only to be placed on hold twice.
That was not a surprise, since emergency operators had a ``lack of awareness'' about what was happening at the twin towers and were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of calls, said commission staffer Sam Casperson.

Associated Press Writers Sara Kugler and Michael Weissenstein contributed to this report.

On the Net:

www.9-11commission.gov

05/18/04 17:12

Jolie Rouge · 05-18-2004, 06:58 PM

Fire, Police Rivalry Hurt Sept. 11 Rescue
By Ellen Wulfhorst

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...1232347806.htm

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rivalry between New York's police and fire departments and conflicting advice from emergency teams on Sept. 11, 2001, hampered efforts to save lives as the Twin Towers collapsed in a heap of smoke, the commission investigating the attacks said on Tuesday.

The panel, meeting less than 2 miles (3 km) from the former site of the World Trade Center, said the "long-standing rivalry" between the two departments meant they considered themselves "operationally autonomous" and failed to work together in the largest rescue operation in New York's history. "This rivalry has been acknowledged by every witness we have asked about it," a commission staff report read out at the public hearing said.

The report also said emergency operators answering distress calls from the burning towers gave conflicting advice or were unable to provide even the most basic information, such as the floors affected by the attacks. While some evacuees were told to return to their offices, others were told to leave the building. Faced with choking black smoke, insufferable heat and no prospect of relief, some of those trapped in the towers jumped from the building, the staff report said.

To help analyze what went wrong on Sept. 11, the independent commission presented dramatic footage of the day nearly 3,000 people, including around 343 firefighters and 23 police officers, died in the suicide airplane attacks on New York and Washington. The videos of the crashes also included statements from fire and police officials on duty that day.

Hundreds of victims' relatives were attending the hearings, some with pictures of their lost loved ones pinned to their shirts. Gasps filled the auditorium as the commission showed footage of the low-flying passenger planes smashing into the World Trade Center and erupting into balls of fire.

"I feel a responsibility to know everything that impacted my brother. He died without anybody to give him the information. I need to give him that respect," said Wells Noonan, whose brother Robert Noonan, 36, worked on the 103rd floor of one tower and died in the attacks.

POOR COMMUNICATIONS

The commission report said rescue efforts were also hampered by communications equipment that was damaged in the attacks or was not "interoperable" between departments. This meant rescue teams had little idea what was going on other floors, in other buildings, or outside the towers. For example, forces inside the towers did not know about the damage visible from police helicopters circling overhead.

The commission report said rescue officials did not anticipate the towers would collapse, and certainly not so quickly. The two towers imploded within roughly 1-3/4 hours of the first airplane impact. "We didn't have a lot of information coming in. We didn't receive any reports from what was seen from the helicopters," said Joseph Pfeifer, a battalion chief for the New York Fire Department who was at the disaster site that day.

"It was impossible to know how much damage was done on the upper flowers, whether the stairwells were intact or not ... As a matter of fact, what you saw on TV, we did not have that information," he said of the video footage.

When the first tower collapsed in a tremendous roar, rescue officials in the remaining North Tower had no idea what had happened. Unaware of the extent of the disaster, rescue officials lacked a uniform sense of urgency to evacuate the remaining building, which collapsed about half an hour later.

05/18/04 12:32

Jolie Rouge · 05-20-2004, 12:32 AM

Families Lash Out at Giuliani at Hearing
By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/...80.htm&sc=1110

NEW YORK (AP) - Outraged relatives of World Trade Center victims heckled former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on Wednesday as their hopes that he would be grilled by the Sept. 11 commission faded in the face of gentle questioning and effusive praise from panel members.

``My son was murdered because of your incompetence!'' shouted Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son died in the trade center. Seated three rows behind Giuliani, she jabbed her finger at the former mayor and waved a sign that read ``Fiction'' as he gave the city's emergency response a glowing review.

Giuliani finished his testimony and abruptly left the auditorium minutes later, leaving many family members upset that they received few answers. Monica Gabrielle, who lost her husband, Richard, called it a ``lost opportunity.'' '`This was not a time for Rudy Giuliani to talk about all the great things he did on 9/11,'' she said. ``He can save that for his talking tours. He should have told us what went wrong and what we should do now.''

The acrimonious hearing brought together the mayor, who became a symbol of heroism for his steady response to the attack, and the activist relatives who have become a voice of dissent over his administration's emergency planning and response. Their complaints have been supported by a growing mass of critical findings on gaps in command, control and communications among New York's agencies in charge of emergency response.

The anger directed at Giuliani came on the second and final day of hearings in New York by the Sept. 11 commission, created by Congress last year to investigate the attacks and advise the country on ways to avoid future attacks. The hearings resume in Washington on June 8-9 and the final report is due July 26.

The commission released two reports that mark the most comprehensive probe to date of New York's response on Sept 11. The findings detailed a list of failings including poor communication, gulfs in cooperation between police and firefighters and grave deficiencies in the city's 911 emergency telephone network.

The report led to an aggressive interrogation of Giuliani's top fire, police and emergency management officials Tuesday, with Republican appointee John F. Lehman, a former Navy secretary under President Reagan, calling the failings ``a scandal'' and ``not worthy of the Boy Scouts.''

Ex-fire commissioner Thomas Von Essen later called Lehman's comments ``outrageous'' and ``despicable.''

The harsh questioning of Giuliani's former team was a sharp contrast to the universal praise that commission members heaped on the former mayor Wednesday. His positive assessment of such hotly debated topics as the 911 phone system and gaps in fire and police communications went virtually unchallenged. ``New York City, on that terrible day, in a sense was blessed because it had you as leader,'' said commission chairman and former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean. ``It had somebody who was a great, great leader to take charge of a terrible, terrible event. You also had, as you've told us, some of the best people in the country to call on who worked for you and worked for the city.''

Family members called the Giuliani questioning weak. ``A lot of these questions that the public has may die with this commission,'' said Patricia Casazza, whose husband died as the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald filled with smoke.

Giuliani began his testimony Wednesday with a call to focus on the nation's true enemies and not criticize each other. ``Our enemy is not each other but the terrorists who attacked us, murdered our loved ones and continue to offer a threat to our security, safety and survival,'' Giuliani said to applause.

Later, Giuliani was chastised by members of the public. A longtime city gadfly berated him and the commission, yelling, ``Three thousand people murdered does not mean leadership!'' He and another person were hustled out of the room. Others in the audience shouted about the failure of Fire Department radios, shouting, ``Talk about the radios!''

``You're simply wasting time at this point,'' commission head Thomas Kean told the family members.

``YOU'RE wasting time!'' came the angry reply.

Giuliani began his remarks by describing a September morning that began at breakfast with two friends and quickly turned into unimaginable horror as two hijacked planes slammed into the twin towers, killing 2,749 people and rattling the city's psyche. As Giuliani recalled watching a man leap from around the 102nd floor of the north tower, family members began to cry, clearly disturbed by the account.

The hearing was held at the New School University in Greenwich Village - about 1 1/2 miles from ground zero. Giuliani also told the commission that warnings of a possible terrorist attack on New York contained in an Aug. 6, 2001, White House briefing paper never reached City Hall, but probably would not have changed local security precautions.

The intelligence briefing for President Bush referred to evidence of federal buildings in New York possibly being cased by terrorists. It mentioned New York or the World Trade Center three times. ``If that information had been given to us, or more warnings had been given in the summer of 2001, I can't honestly tell you we'd do anything differently,'' said Giuliani, who has become one of the Bush administration's most vocal supporters. ``We were doing at the time everything we could think of ... to protect the city.''

Current Mayor Michael Bloomberg later testified that New York was recently advised by Congress that its homeland security funding for the 2004 budget year would be cut by nearly 50 percent. Thinly populated states such as Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming receive several times more funding per capita than New York, he said. ``This is pork-barrel politics at its worst,'' the mayor said. ``It also, unfortunately, has the effect of aiding and abetting those who hate us and plot against us.''

05/19/04 15:46

Jolie Rouge · 05-20-2004, 12:42 AM

Families Heckle Giuliani at 9/11 Hearing
By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...0040519XNYR303

NEW YORK (AP) - Outraged relatives of World Trade Center victims heckled former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on Wednesday as their hopes that he would be grilled by the Sept. 11 commission faded in the face of gentle questioning and effusive praise from panel members.

``My son was murdered because of your incompetence!'' shouted Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son died in the trade center. Seated three rows behind Giuliani, she jabbed her finger at the former mayor and waved a sign that read ``Fiction'' as he gave the city's emergency response a glowing review.

Giuliani finished his testimony and abruptly left the auditorium minutes later, upsetting family members who said they received few answers. Monica Gabrielle, who lost her husband, Richard, called it a ``lost opportunity.''
``This was not a time for Rudy Giuliani to talk about all the great things he did on 9/11,'' she said. ``He can save that for his talking tours. He should have told us what went wrong and what we should do now.''

The acrimonious hearing brought together the mayor, who became a symbol of heroism for his steady response to the attack, and the activist relatives who have become a voice of dissent over his administration's emergency planning and response. Their complaints have been supported by a growing mass of critical findings on gaps in command, control and communications among New York's agencies in charge of emergency response.

The anger directed at Giuliani came on the second and final day of hearings in New York by the Sept. 11 commission, created by Congress last year to investigate the attacks and advise the country on ways to avoid future attacks. The hearings resume in Washington on June 8-9 and the final report is due July 26.

The commission released two reports that mark the most comprehensive probe to date of New York's response on Sept 11. The findings detailed a list of failings including poor communication, gulfs in cooperation between police and firefighters and grave deficiencies in the city's 911 emergency telephone network.

The report led to an aggressive interrogation of Giuliani's top fire, police and emergency management officials Tuesday, with Republican appointee John F. Lehman, a former Navy secretary under President Reagan, calling the failings ``a scandal'' and ``not worthy of the Boy Scouts.''

Ex-fire commissioner Thomas Von Essen later called Lehman's comments ``outrageous'' and ``despicable.''

Lehman told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the comments were misunderstood and that he was not trying to criticize those who led the Sept. 11 effort. ``I was on the side of the witnesses, against the system,'' he said.

The harsh questioning of Giuliani's former team was a sharp contrast to the universal praise that commission members heaped on the former mayor Wednesday. His positive assessment of such hotly debated topics as the 911 phone system and gaps in fire and police communications went virtually unchallenged. ``New York City, on that terrible day, in a sense was blessed because it had you as leader,'' said commission chairman and former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean. ``It had somebody who was a great, great leader to take charge of a terrible, terrible event. You also had, as you've told us, some of the best people in the country to call on who worked for you and worked for the city.''

Family members called the Giuliani questioning weak.

``A lot of these questions that the public has may die with this commission,'' said Patricia Casazza, whose husband died as the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald filled with smoke.

Giuliani began his testimony Wednesday with a call to focus on the nation's true enemies and not criticize each other. ``Our enemy is not each other but the terrorists who attacked us, murdered our loved ones and continue to offer a threat to our security, safety and survival,'' Giuliani said to applause.

Later, Giuliani was chastised by members of the public. A longtime city gadfly berated him and the commission, yelling, ``Three thousand people murdered does not mean leadership!'' He and another person were hustled out of the room. Others in the audience shouted about the failure of Fire Department radios, shouting, ``Talk about the radios!''

``You're simply wasting time at this point,'' commission head Thomas Kean told the family members.

``YOU'RE wasting time!'' came the angry reply.

Asked afterward about the outbursts, Giuliani said: ``I knew that that would happen. ... I attribute it to the stress and the trauma that they're going through.''

Giuliani began his remarks by describing a September morning that began at breakfast with two friends and quickly turned into unimaginable horror as two hijacked planes slammed into the twin towers, killing 2,749 people and rattling the city's psyche. As Giuliani recalled watching a man leap from around the 102nd floor of the north tower, family members began to cry, clearly disturbed by the account.
The hearing was held at the New School University in Greenwich Village - about 1 1/2 miles from ground zero.

Giuliani also told the commission that warnings of a possible terrorist attack on New York contained in an Aug. 6, 2001, White House briefing paper never reached City Hall, but probably would not have changed local security precautions.

The intelligence briefing for President Bush referred to evidence of federal buildings in New York possibly being cased by terrorists. It mentioned New York or the World Trade Center three times. ``If that information had been given to us, or more warnings had been given in the summer of 2001, I can't honestly tell you we'd do anything differently,'' said Giuliani, who has become one of the Bush administration's most vocal supporters. ``We were doing at the time everything we could think of ... to protect the city.''

Current Mayor Michael Bloomberg later testified that New York was recently advised by Congress that its homeland security funding for the 2004 budget year would be cut by nearly 50 percent. Thinly populated states such as Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming receive several times more funding per capita than New York, he said. ``This is pork-barrel politics at its worst,'' the mayor said. ``It also, unfortunately, has the effect of aiding and abetting those who hate us and plot against us.''

05/19/04 22:44

Jolie Rouge · 06-16-2004, 01:01 AM

Sept. 11 Commission Holds Final Hearings
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...33.htm&sc=1110

WASHINGTON (AP) - Of all the lines of defense that failed to stop the Sept. 11 attacks, the final one - military jet fighters - never really came into play. As the Sept. 11 commission wraps up its work, it will look into why.

The panel holds its final two-day public hearing Wednesday and Thursday. The first day will be devoted to al-Qaida and the 9/11 plot and the second to whether the Pentagon and Federal Aviation Administration could have done more to limit the damage.

One of two commission staff reports that were to be released Wednesday discloses the plot initially may have been planned for May or June 2001, rather than Sept. 11, according to a senior law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of agency policy. The official said the information about the delay probably came from U.S. interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a top al-Qaida leader captured in Pakistan in March 2003.

Commissioners, meanwhile, won't hear from a German prosecutor who had been expected to detail a key element of the plot - the so-called Hamburg al-Qaida cell. That group helped arrange financial support and housing for Sept. 11 hijackers as they planned the attacks. Matthias Krauss cited a scheduling conflict as the reason for the last-minute cancellation. A spokeswoman said he would submit written testimony.

On Thursday, the commission will end its series of public hearings by taking up the question of whether military jet fighters from NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, could have limited the destruction caused by the Sept. 11 hijackers by shooting down the airliners. Officials have acknowledged the fighters did not get airborne as quickly as possible.

Kristen Breitweiser of Middletown Township, N.J., whose husband, Ronald, died in the World Trade Center, said a lack of foresight on the part of those agencies was compounded by officials' mistakes on the morning of Sept. 11. ``I think we were ill-prepared, and I think people showed poor judgment,'' Breitweiser said. The plane that crashed into the Pentagon, in particular, could have been stopped, she contended.

Both NORAD and Federal Aviation Administration officials say changes have been implemented since the attacks. They have established chains of communication. Generals - rather than just the president - have been given authority to order the fighter pilots to shoot down hijacked aircraft. The number of warplanes on alert has been increased, and fighters are put on patrol over U.S. cities and events deemed possible terrorist targets.

When the Sept. 11 terrorists struck, the United States and Canada were defended by 20 fighter aircraft, arrayed in pairs in 10 locations, said Lt. Col. Roberto Garza, a NORAD spokesman. They were kept armed and fueled, with pilots nearby, ready to take off in less than 15 minutes. They were a remnant of the Cold War, when North America worried more about intercepting Soviet bombers than hijacked airliners. On Sept. 11, their focus was directed outward, toward threats that might approach American coastlines. Potential hijackings were the domain of law enforcement. The only fighters that were close to the attacks were in Massachusetts and Virginia.

The best information about the sequence of events on Sept. 11 comes from a timeline provided by NORAD in the months after the attacks. NORAD spokesman Garza said some aspects of the timeline now are considered inaccurate, however, but he refused to be more specific.

The two Boston flights that hit the World Trade Center, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were the first to take off and the first to be hijacked. When two NORAD F-15 Eagle fighters rocketed into the sky from Otis Air National Guard Base, Mass., Flight 11 had already hit the North Tower, and the fighters were 10 minutes away when Flight 175 struck the South Tower.

The FAA and NORAD had a better chance of stopping American Airlines Flight 77, which had broken from its flight path just before 9 a.m., relatives of the victims say. The government had 45 minutes until the plane would hit the Pentagon.

By then, American skies were in chaos. At one point, the FAA was tracking 11 planes that it feared could have been hijacked, said Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the agency. Air Force fighters were taking off from bases unarmed, and someone floated the idea of using one of them to ram a hijacked airliner.

Still, two events would have been required for the Pentagon strike to have been averted. First, President Bush would have had to have ordered that any hijacked airliners be shot down. Bush ultimately did make that call, but only after the Pentagon was hit.

Second, NORAD's F-16 Fighting Falcons at Langley Air Force Base, near Norfolk, Va., would have had to have been launched sooner.

Why they weren't is unclear.

On the Net:

Sept. 11 panel: www.9-11commission.gov

06/15/04 22:59

Quote:

By then, American skies were in chaos. At one point, the FAA was tracking 11 planes that it feared could have been hijacked, said Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the agency. Air Force fighters were taking off from bases unarmed, and someone floated the idea of using one of them to ram a hijacked airliner.

Still, two events would have been required for the Pentagon strike to have been averted. First, President Bush would have had to have ordered that any hijacked airliners be shot down. Bush ultimately did make that call, but only after the Pentagon was hit.

How was he supposed to choose which planes to take down ?

Jolie Rouge · 06-17-2004, 05:48 PM

9/11 Panel: Confusion Hindered Response
By HOPE YEN

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...20040617EJV103

WASHINGTON (AP) - The terror strikes of Sept. 11, 2001 overwhelmed all immediate efforts at response or even full comprehension, a bipartisan commission reported Thursday, and spread confusion to the point that Vice President Dick Cheney mistakenly thought U.S. warplanes shot down two aircraft.

The front line civilian and military agencies struggled to ``improvise a homeland defense against an unprecedented challenge they had never encountered and had never trained to meet,'' the panel said.

``We fought many phantoms that day,'' Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the panel. He noted that reports of car bombings and other terrorist acts spread quickly - and falsely - in the nerves-on-edge hours after the World Trade Center and Pentagon were struck by planes hijacked by terrorists.

The panel met as President Bush personally disputed its day-old finding that there was no ``collaborative relationship'' between Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaida terrorist network responsible for the attacks. ``There was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida,'' the president said after a Cabinet meeting at the White House.

The dispute is a significant one, since Bush and top administration officials cited ties between al-Qaida and the Iraqi dictator in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The bipartisan commission issued its latest findings as it held the final public session of a momentous review of the worst terror strikes in the nation's history. The panel is expected to make a final report next month into the events that killed nearly 3,000.

The commission said efforts to respond to four hijackings that day were plagued on multiple fronts.

The military never received more than nine minutes notice from the FAA on any of the four hijackings, it said.

Moreover, it added, there was a delay in passing along an order for pilots to shoot down any hostile aircraft.

Additionally:

The first call from the FAA to the military for help prompted a question: ``Is this real-world or exercise?

One plane moved into a gap in Federal Aviation Administration radar coverage.

A single air traffic controller wound up with responsibility for two hijacked planes simultaneously.

The FAA failed to notify the military that one of the four planes had been hijacked.

The FAA incorrectly told the military that the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center was still in the air after impact.

The commission's report steered clear of any claims that the planes could have been intercepted. ``NORAD (North American Air Defense Command) officials have maintained that they would have intercepted and shot down United 93. We are not so sure,'' the report said. That was the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside, evidently after passengers struggled with the terrorists aboard. ``Their actions saved the lives of countless others,'' the panel said.

If FAA and NORAD officials were scrambling to deal with the strikes, so, too, were top officials of the government. President Bush was in Florida, telling Cheney in a phone conversation after planes had hit targets in New York and Washington, ``We're at war....Somebody's going to pay.'' Cheney, in a secure, below-ground White House facility, received Bush's approval for pilots to shoot down aircraft deemed hostile. The vice president conveyed the order.

At midmorning, more than a half-hour after the order had been given, Cheney told Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld he thought it had been carried out. ``It's my understanding that they've already taken a couple of aircraft out,'' Cheney said, according to the partial transcript of a conference call that the commission released.

While it is customary for commission staff to read their report aloud, this one was augmented by snippets of tape recordings made that day as well as graphics demonstrating the flight paths of the four hijacked plans.

A particularly haunting transmission came from the cockpit of American Airlines Flight 11, which took off from Boston and was the first plane to strike the World Trade Center. A person believed to be Mohamed Atta, the alleged ringleader of the 19 hijackers, who piloted the plane, is heard saying to passengers: ``We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be OK. We are returning to the airport.'' Later, Atta tells the passengers, ``If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane.''

The report largely blamed inadequate emergency procedures that contemplated more time to react to a traditional hijacking rather than a suicide hijacking.

In many cases, the panel praised the actions of government personnel forced to make split-second decisions. In the hours just after the attacks occurred, nearly 4,500 planes in the air had to be landed as quickly as possible. To do that, air traffic controllers first had to reroute about a quarter of them - juggling 50 times the usual number of planes rerouted each hour. ``We do not believe that an accurate understanding of the events of that morning reflects discredit on the operational personnel,'' the report said.

The report said air traffic controllers realized at 8:24 a.m. on Sept. 11 that Flight 11 was being hijacked, but lost several minutes notifying layers of command - according to protocol - before contacting NORAD. The plane crashed at 8:46 a.m.

Controllers, meanwhile, didn't realize American Airlines Flight 77 - which took off from Dulles Airport outside Washington - might be hijacked when it mysteriously started veering off course at 8:54 a.m. The plane then traveled undetected for 36 minutes toward Washington, due in part to a radar glitch. The confusion meant only an unarmed military cargo plane could be diverted to track the plane. The plane located Flight 77 but could do nothing as the commercial jetliner crashed into the Pentagon.

The commission is winding down its 1 1/2-year investigation after interviewing more than 1,000 witnesses, including Bush, and reviewing more than 2 million documents.

On the Net:

Sept. 11 panel: www.9-11commission.gov

06/17/04 14:23