Washington – Time, money and ever-present terror threats have done little to close gaping holes in the nation’s security system, the former Sept. 11 commission said Monday in accusing the government of failing to protect the country against another attack.
The panel cited disjointed airplane passenger screening methods, pork-barrel security funding and other problems in saying the Bush administration and Congress had not moved quickly enough to enact the majority of its recommendations of July 2004.
“We’re frustrated, all of us – frustrated at the lack of urgency in addressing these various problems,” said Thomas Kean, a Republican and former New Jersey governor who was chairman of the commission.
“We shouldn’t need another wake-up call,” Kean said. “We believe that the terrorists will strike again; so does every responsible expert that we have talked to. And if they do, and these reforms that might have prevented such an attack have not been implemented, what will our excuse be?”
Rather than disbanding last year like most federally appointed commissions when their terms expire, Kean and the nine other commissioners continued their work as a private entity called the 9/11 Public Discourse Project.
Wrapping up more than three years of investigations and hearings, the former commission issued what members said was their final assessment of the government’s counterterrorism performance as a report card. It gave failing grades in five areas, and issued only one A – actually an A-minus – for the Bush administration’s efforts to curb terrorist financing.
The five F’s were for:
Failing to provide a radio system to allow first responders from different agencies to communicate with one another during emergencies.
Distributing federal homeland security funding to states on a “pork-barrel” basis instead of based on risk.
Failing to consolidate names of suspicious airline travelers on a single terror-watch screening list.
Hindering congressional oversight by retaining intelligence budget information as classified materials.
Failing to engage in an alliance to develop international standards for the treatment and prosecution of detained terror suspects.
The panel also gave the government 12 D’s and B’s, nine C’s and two incomplete grades.
Asked about the panel’s final report, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, “It’s important to look at some of what they’re talking about.” He also related the commission’s findings to the administration’s campaign in Iraq. “By taking the fight to the enemy abroad, and by doing so, that is keeping them from plotting and planning to attack inside America,” McClellan said.
