Posted on 05/18/2004 2:17:21 PM PDT by Brilliant
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.
it will be 'leaked' well before the start of the convention, just so they have enough time to 'review' it...
Sometimes I get the creepy feeling that we are no more that two giant steps away from becoming Northern Ireland.
Democrat/Liberal driven witch hunt.
We're sorry that so many police and firefighters were unable to appear before the panel and undergo the tough questioning. They were killed trying to rescue your family members.
Does anybody know what percentage of the "families of the victims of 911" are participating in this kangaroo court?
This whole darn thing is getting Stalinesque. Or maybe I should compare it to Maoist where the local officials are castigated in front of the higherups and they contritely bow to the ground (before they are shot.)
Unfortunately, liberals would vote FOR them.
By association, the scumbags (that includes the Republicans) on the panel are trying to tarnish Giuliani as well. Not fit to be a senator, dontcha know....
This tactic will not lose for Bush any votes he would not already have lost, and could possibly gain for him new votes from those outraged by the unfairness of the forum.
The enemy is to blame for 911, not a bunch of all too human bureaucrats.
That doesn't payoff as well in court.
The mourning period has been over for some time, now it's just about the money.
Is he trying to say he never heard of the first World Trade Center bombing?
He didn't know about that, and that Arab terrorists were involved?
Is he a complete idiot, or does he think we are?
I am disgusted by Kerrey's grandstanding and by the panel in general; why didn't THEY prevent 9-11?
Quote of the day candidate in post #25.
And what would they have done had they known, plane-proof the building? I am sick of all of them, particularly those like Hamilton and Kerrey who served in Congress and did nothing to alert this country but shamelessly blame every organization whose priorities they were expected to set. Kerrey says they defeated the INS, the FBI, the CIA...NO, they defeated Clinton and Congress.
I saw Hamilton and Kean on Fox this morning. They were most alarmingly smarmy, sitting there like the Doublemint Twins, with Hamilton doing most of the talking while Kean smiled in that oily way he has.
I am disgusted with the entire thing.
No kidding. They're almost ghoulish in their lust for revenge. Today Linda Vester of FNC interviewed one man whose wife died in the WTC on 9/11 and he said he had lost hope for any preventative measures being taken because of the panel's politics. (He was the father of the girl President Bush hugged a week or so ago at a rally.)
Why wasn't the hearing broadcast LIVE today? Do the networks think they're protecting our fragile little sensibilities or something?
Enemies and proterrorists are obvioulsy doing a lot of "work" here. Politicians do not like to see that they are incapable of picking up the trash and that every one else is to blame.
The amazing thing about this is that "only" about 3,000 were killed. When I saw those buildings go down, I thought it would be at least 10,000 dead. Almost everyone who was below the impact zone - except those in or near the central elevators who had jet fuel come down on them - survived. This goddamned commission has almost accomplished the impossible - switching blame from the actual killers onto everyone BUT the killers. Just like the movie JFK, where the only person NOT involved in the plot was Lee Harvey Oswald. Typical leftist inversion of blame and inversion of reality.
Whatever we do, let's not blame the terrorists, and let's forget all about the payments made to the victims' families, let's not be united, and let's not remain focused on the enemy at hand.
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