911 Panel Scolds Ex-Police, Fire Chiefs [insults Boy Scouts]

NEW YORK - 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."

Former fire commissioner Thomas Von Essen and former police chief Bernard Kerik shot back with infuriated responses to 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 fire and police departments. Some wept 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 heated exchanges occurred at the start of a two-day hearing held 1 1/2 miles from ground zero. 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.

While the New York hearings 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 the attacks.

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, 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 Richard Sheirer, former Office of Emergency Management commissioner.

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.

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.

Does anyone remember a consulting firm that was hired to write a report on the 911 emergency response a year or so ago? There were a few threads on FR about it.

IIRC there was a RAT connection in there some place.

I've not been able to locate it so far, but it might be worth a relook.

This is the lowest blow yet from that despicable commission.

This charade is outrageous and I'm simply furious. I could never have imagined seeing such a national kangaroo court in this country. These politicians and these families make me sick. It's shameful.

Somehow, through it all, I've maintained my faith in the United States and her citizens. We are not alone.

Semper fidelis.

Found it, but haven't had time to go over it. From August 2002.

Sept. 11 Report Criticizes NY Fire Department

It was McKinsey Consulting. Here is a quote from the thread--

Enron, which was paying McKinsey as much as $10 million in annual fees, is just one of an unusual number of embarrassing client failures for the elite consulting firm. Besides Enron, there's Swiss-air, Kmart, and Global Crossing--all McKinsey clients.

Sally Regenhard

SallyRegenhard@aol.com
www.skyscrapersafety.org

At almost every press conference, in almost every interview, Regenhard will say that what killed her son, a probationary firefighter, was not our policy in the Mideast, a lapse in U.S. intelligence, a failure in airline security, the force of two jetliners, the depravity of Osama bin Laden, or the zealotry of nineteen homicidal maniacs. She will say the towers themselves murdered her son. The towers and the forces that built them.

"It has been proven scientifically that the World Trade Center did not collapse because two planes hit it," she continues, pointing her finger at the camera. "It collapsed because of insufficient spray-on fireproofing, which the Port Authority has known about for two decades."

Regenhard used to be a nice lady from the Bronx who worked in the nursing-home business. Today her advisory panel includes prominent professors, retired fire chiefs, and civil-liberties lawyer Norm Siegel -- "amazed at her ability to organize, amazed at her ability to handle the press."

She adds that she hasn't taken a vacation day all year and that she no longer socializes with her old friends -- just victims' families. "I know I sound obsessive," she says. "I was never like this." She starts to cry again. "I don't know why God did this to us. It has to be for a higher purpose. If we could just reform those building codes . . . "

These are the same people who are always clapping during testimony when it is against President Bush or anyone in his administration.

Sally Regenhard, left, and Monica Gabrielle, whose son and husband, respectively, died in the World Trade Center attacks, attend a public hearing on the attacks before a joint House-Senate Intelligence Committees hearing in September 2002.

Bush's 9/11 coverup?
Family members of victims of the terror attacks say the White House has smothered every attempt to get to the bottom of the outrageous intelligence failures that took place on its watch.

Don't know how significant this is, but I'll throw it in the ring--

Report: Chelsea Clinton takes six-figure consulting job

NEW YORK (AP) -- Chelsea Clinton will start a six-figure consulting job after she receives a master's degree from Oxford University later this year, Newsweek magazine reports on its Web site.

The daughter of former President Clinton will work in the New York office of London-based McKinsey & Company, newsweek.com reported Friday.

If you google McKinsey AND Gorelick, you'll find several connections such as serving on boards of directors with partners of the firm. Again, I don't know how big a deal it is, but there you have it.

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