9/11 Chair: There's No Evidence to Blame Clinton or Bush Teams

NewsMax.com ^ | 12/18/03 | AP

[kattracks]

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of a federal commission looking into the Sept. 11 attacks said Thursday that mistakes over many years left the United States vulnerable to such an attack, but he resisted pinning blame on either of the last two presidential teams.

"We have no evidence that anybody high in the Clinton administration or the Bush administration did anything wrong," chairman Thomas Kean said in an interview with ABC's "Nightline" taped for airing Thursday night.

Kean said the 10-member National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States has not decided whether to ask former President Clinton or President Bush to testify. He also said that any conclusions about the performance of high-level officials "will be reached when we are finished with our job, not now."

Kean sought to clarify remarks attributed to him in a CBS News report that aired Wednesday.

In the CBS interview, Kean said the commission's report, due May 27, will detail "what wasn't done and what should have be done" to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

He added, "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."

CBS reported that Kean's comments constituted "pointing fingers inside the (Bush) administration and laying blame."

On Thursday, Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark labeled Kean's statements "disturbing" and said they showed the Bush administration could have done more to protect America from a terrorist attack.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said Kean's comments meant "that Bush administration officials had valuable information that could have prevented the terrorist attacks."

But Kean said in Thursday's interview that he did not mean to suggest that certain federal officials should have been fired after Sept. 11. He said he was commenting on obvious mistakes that were made, such as letting terrorists into the country and letting dangerous items onto planes.

"There are a number of steps along the way, that if they had occurred differently, this event wouldn't have occurred," he said.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said he reviewed the CBS report and did not believe Kean leveled accusations against the Bush administration.

"There is nothing that we have seen that leads us to believe that Sept. 11 could have been prevented," McClellan said.

Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, was appointed by Bush to lead the bipartisan commission.

[Paleo Conservative]

Pin it on the donkey.

[Az Joe]

Oh, too bad. What are the DUmmys at DUmmyland going to do now?

Hey DUmmys, this is AZ Joe. Better be good or we'll kick your asses again next year mo fos!

[Delta 21]

Yesterday it was time to point fingers...today we cant find anyone to blame.

Clinton and his gang may have done nothing wrong durring their watch but they damn sure didnt do anything right either.

"W" and the Dream team have been doing justa bout everything right since they replaced all the "W" keys in the Whitehouse.

[Mike Darancette]

Kean sought to clarify remarks attributed to him in a CBS News report that aired Wednesday.

It was out there for one news cycle. Now the RATS will say Keane is a political hack and was bought off, and scream for another investigation, just as the memo said they would.

[Republican Wildcat]

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said Kean's comments meant "that Bush administration officials had valuable information that could have prevented the terrorist attacks." Now if only we could tell what Lautenberg means when he says something.

[Republican Wildcat]

Oh, darn. Our good friend Betty Jo will be so disappointed.

[Republican Wildcat]

Congratulations.

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To: Mo1
My prediction: This story will get no traction and Kean will soon be backtracking.

401 posted on 12/18/2003 8:41:37 AM EST by zook
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[nopardons]

I feel her pain...NOT! LOL

[Cosmo]

Sounds like whoever originally ran with the story at CBS didn't bother to call Kean and ask for clarification.

And the press continues to flunk journalism school

[HardStarboard]

It would appear that the Bush administration, hearing rumors of the tail getting pinned to the Elephant made it clear that a campaign of truth re the culpability of the Clinton administration Donkey in the 9/11 attacks would hit the streets forthwith.

The Democrats may be dumb, but they are not yet suicidal. I give them 3 months.

[Map Kernow]

Someone in the Bush White House took my advice and took Kean to the woodshed. He had no business making such vague, tantalizing statements to the press yesterday that he should have know would stir up a hornet's nest of blame and vituperation from the media and Democrats.

[astounded]

I think this strategy is designed to deflect blame from the Clintons, not to get President Bush. It is another chapter in the rehabilitation of the former occupant of the oval office, and more importantly, it is attempting to inoculate his "wife", the Wicked Witch of New York, for her run for the presidency. It is all about politics, democrat style.

[zook]

Thanks! I can't say I wasn't "strutting" a bit this morning when I read the news.

[XRdsRev]

Personally I don't think anybody took Kean to the woodshed. Tom Kean seems to be out politics for good by his own choice and a political spanking probably would not have much effect on him. I don't agree with him on everything but he is a very smart man and a good American, whose family tree here in the US goes back to before the Revolution. If anything, his comments were probably taken out of context.

Mr. Kean is generally very careful in what he says and how he says it and I think his priorities are what is good for keeping America safe first. If that means pointing fingers at the administrations of President Bush or Clinton, so be it. Tom Kean's ancestral home is only a few miles away from the site of the former World Trade Towers and people in Elizabeth were directly affected by the tragedy. Tom Kean is not going to cover up for anybody and that is the way I want it to be. I think the committee will issue a fair report with him at the helm.

[Map Kernow]

As I said in another post, as an ex-New Yorker I am sometimes unfair in my judgments of my compatriots from west of the Hudson. If you are convinced that Tom Kean is an honorable, patriotic American, I accept your judgment.

However, give me this: it was still very poor judgment for him to make the statements he did about the report before it was ready for full release, and to an outfit, CBS News, that even a political neophyte would know would take what he said "out of context" and try to sensationalize it to the Administration's and the nation's disadvantage.

[XRdsRev]

You and I agree there. I would prefer that Kean and the rest of the committee stay "out of touch" with the media until the report is finally issued.

I think and I may be wrong on this of course, that Mr. Kean may have been using his comments to try to leverage the administration into releasing some documents to the committee that the administration didn't want to (probably for National Security reasons). I don't think Mr. Kean is trying to get President Bush (my understanding is that they get along well) but I also don't think that Mr. Kean will cave in to the President or anyone else, if he thinks there is some information that is of importance to the committee.

I support the committee and it's effort to find out "what went wrong" before 9/11. My biggest gripe with them however is that much of what they discover may be things that are obvious flaws now but weren't then. They have the benefit of hindsight that the people involved in 9/11 didn't have.