Panel Says 9/11 was Preventable

Asked if he thought Kean's recent remarks signaled a more aggressive phase of the investigation, Bill Harvey, whose wife died in the World Trade Center attacks, says he is "cautiously optimistic." For months, he and other skeptics have been critical of the commission's progress, pointing to lackluster public hearings that dealt with policy issues and not the events of 9/11, as well as subpoena power that went largely unused.

"There's been a complete lack of substantive, hard-hitting hearings with witnesses actually answering questions from commissioners," Hence complains. "That's an investigation, and we haven't seen that yet."

But they may soon. CBS reported that Kean promises major revelations next year. And starting in January the commission's hearings will focus much more closely on Sept. 11 itself and will feature senior administration officials involved with intelligence and national security. "In that kind of setting people may well be sworn in to testify and the proceedings will resemble a more conventional hearing," commission spokesman Al Felzenberg, told Salon earlier this year.

"We've been waiting for a long time for these types of hearings," says Van Auken, who wants to find out why Bush sat with elementary school children on the morning of Sept. 11 for nearly 30 minutes after the second World Trade Center tower was hit. Why Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security advisor, told reporters the administration never guessed terrorists would use hijacked planes as missiles, when there were scores of instances when government agencies had suggested just such an attack might one day occur. And why it took the FAA 29 minutes to notify NORAD that American Airlines Flight 77, bound for Los Angeles, was drastically off course and heading for Washington, after two hijacked planes had already crashed into the World Trade Center.

"It's been over two years, and it's time to answer these questions," Van Auken says.

Personally, I think that BOTH administrations "dropped the ball". But, then again, I have never been too fond of Monday morning quarterbacks, so I think that it is counterproductive to place blame on one president or the other.

Part of the problem, as I see it, was that few people would have anticipated, or even imagined, the scope of the tragedy that was 9/11. It was a wake up call for all of us.
The important thing is to make sure that something like that will NEVER happen again!

BTW, has anyone noticed that we no longer have color-coded alerts any more?

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced Sunday the raising of the U.S. security level from yellow (elevated) to orange (high), an official told CNN.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said the U.S. intelligence community has received a "substantial increase" in the volume of threat-related intelligence reports.

Ridge is expected to discuss concerns about continued al Qaeda threats to the United States, the department announced.