9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable

["Gerry Blackwood" <gpblackwood@justice.com>]

Radsafers, i know this is "OFFTOPIC" but it is

important enough that I thought of posting it. Please

do not flame me just delete it if you could careless..



Gerry Blackwood Ph.D





9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable

NEW YORK, Dec. 17, 2003



http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/17/eveningnews/printable589137.shtml



For the first time, the chairman of the independent

commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying

publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been

prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall

Pinkston. 



"This is a very, very important part of history and

we've got to tell it right," said Thomas Kean. 



"As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty

clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been

done," he said. "This was not something that had to

happen." 



Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former

Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing

fingers inside the administration and laying blame. 



"There are people that, if I was doing the job, would

certainly not be in the position they were in at that

time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean

said. 



To find out who failed and why, the commission has

navigated a political landmine, threatening a subpoena

to gain access to the president's top-secret daily

briefs. Those documents may shed light on one of the

most controversial assertions of the Bush

administration – that there was never any thought given

to the idea that terrorists might fly an airplane into

a building. 



"I don't think anybody could have predicted that they

would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked

airplane as a missile," said national security adviser

Condoleeza Rice on May 16, 2002. 



"How is it possible we have a national security advisor

coming out and saying we had no idea they could use

planes as weapons when we had FBI records from 1991

stating that this is a possibility," said Kristen

Breitweiser, one of four New Jersey widows who lobbied

Congress and the president to appoint the commission. 



The widows want to know why various government agencies

didn't connect the dots before Sept. 11, such as

warnings from FBI offices in Minnesota and Arizona

about suspicious student pilots. 



"If you were to tell me that two years after the murder

of my husband that we wouldn't have one question

answered, I wouldn't believe it," Breitweiser said. 



Kean admits the commission also has more questions than

answers. 



Asked whether we should at least know if people sitting

in the decision-making spots on that critical day are

still in those positions, Kean said, "Yes, the answer

is yes. And we will." 



Kean promises major revelations in public testimony

beginning next month from top officials in the FBI,

CIA, Defense Department, National Security Agency and,

maybe, President Bush and former President Clinton. 



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