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Former 9/11 Commissioners: U.S. at Risk

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press WriterSun Dec 4, 6:28 PM ET

The U.S. is at great risk for more terrorist attacks because Congress and the White House have failed to enact several strong security measures, members of the former Sept. 11 commission said Sunday.

It's not a priority for the government right now, said the former chairman, Thomas Kean, ahead of the group's release of a report Monday assessing how well its recommendations have been followed.

More than four years after 9/11 ... people are not paying attention, the former Republican governor of New Jersey said. God help us if we have another attack.

Added Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic vice chairman of the commission: We believe that another attack will occur. It's not a question of if. We are not as well-prepared as we should be.

The five Republicans and five Democrats on the commission, whose recommendations are now promoted through a privately funded group known as the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, conclude that the government deserves more Fs than As in responding to their 41 suggested changes.

Since the commission's final report in July 2004, the government has enacted the centerpiece proposal to create a national intelligence director. But the government has stalled on other ideas, including improving communication among emergency responders and shifting federal terrorism-fighting money so it goes to states based on risk level.

There is a lack of a sense of urgency, Hamilton said. There are so many competing priorities. We've got three wars going on: one in Afghanistan, one in Iraq and the war against terror. And it's awfully hard to keep people focused on something like this.

National security adviser Stephen Hadley said Sunday that President Bush is committed to putting in place most of the commission's recommendations.

Obviously, as we've said all along, we are safer, but not yet safe. There is more to do, Hadley said on Fox News Sunday.

Ex-commissioners contended the government has been remiss by failing to act more quickly.

Kean said the Transportation Security Administration was wrong to announce changes last week that will allow airline passengers to carry small scissors and some sharp tools. He also said the agency, by now, should have consolidated databases of passenger information into a single terror watch list to aid screening.

I don't think we have to go backward here, said Kean, who appeared with Hamilton on NBC's Meet the Press.

They're talking about using more money for random checks. Terrorists coming through the airport may still not be spotted, Kean said.

Kean and Hamilton urged Congress to pass spending bills that would allow police and fire to communicate across radio spectrums and to reallocate money so that Washington and New York, which have more people and symbolic landmarks, could receive more for terrorism defense.

Both bills have stalled in Congress, in part over the level of spending and turf fights over which states should get the most dollars.

This is a no-brainer, said Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman.

From the standpoint of responding to a disaster, the key responders must be able to talk with one another. They could not do it on 9/11, and as a result of that, lives were lost. They could not do it at (Hurricane) Katrina. They still cannot do it.

As for the dollar dispute, Hamilton said, We know what terrorists want to do: they want to kill as many Americans as possible. That means you protect the Washington monument and United States Capitol, and not other places.

Congress established the commission in 2002 to investigate government missteps that led to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Its 567-page final report, which became a national best seller, does not blame Bush or former President Clinton for missteps contributing to the attacks but did say they failed to make anti-terrorism a higher priority.

The commission also concluded that the Sept. 11 attack would not be the nation's last, noting that al-Qaida had tried for at least 10 years to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

Calling the country less safe than we were 18 months ago, former Democratic commissioner Jamie Gorelick said Sunday the government's failure to move forward on the recommendations makes the U.S. more vulnerable.

She cited the failure to ensure that foreign nations are upgrading security measures to stop proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical materials, as well as the FBI's resistance to overhauling its anti-terror programs.

You remember the sense of urgency that we all felt in the summer of 2004. The interest has faded, the Washington lawyer said on ABC's Good Morning America. You could see that in the aftermath of Katrina. We assumed that our government would be able to do what it needed to do and it didn't do it.

___

On the Net:

9/11 Public Discourse Project: http://www.9-11pdp.org/

Copyright � 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

I'm referring to posts on the conservative political board under the post about Michelle Malkin.

Someone who believes that a fetus is a human being? Your label "religious wacko" is very disrespectful and unkind. I am pro-life and I am not mentally unstable.

By Jonathan Weisman and Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A08

When hundreds of religious activists try to get arrested today to protest cutting programs for the poor, prominent conservatives such as James Dobson, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell will not be among them.

That is a great relief to Republican leaders, who have dismissed the burgeoning protests as the work of liberals. But it raises the question: Why in recent years have conservative Christians asserted their influence on efforts to relieve Third World debt, AIDS in Africa, strife in Sudan and international sex trafficking -- but remained on the sidelines while liberal Christians protest domestic spending cuts?

Conservative Christian groups such as Focus on the Family say it is a matter of priorities, and their priorities are abortion, same-sex marriage and seating judges who will back their position against those practices.

It's not a question of the poor not being important or that meeting their needs is not important, said Paul Hetrick, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, Dobson's influential, Colorado-based Christian organization. But whether or not a baby is killed in the seventh or eighth month of pregnancy, that is less important than help for the poor? We would respectfully disagree with that.

Jim Wallis, editor of the liberal Christian journal Sojourners and an organizer of today's protest, was not buying it. Such conservative religious leaders have agreed to support cutting food stamps for poor people if Republicans support them on judicial nominees, he said. They are trading the lives of poor people for their agenda. They're being, and this is the worst insult, unbiblical.

At issue is a House-passed budget-cutting measure that would save $50 billion over five years by trimming food stamp rolls, imposing new fees on Medicaid recipients, squeezing student lenders, cutting child-support enforcement funds and paring agriculture programs. House negotiators are trying to reach accord with senators who passed a more modest $35 billion bill that largely spares programs for the poor.

At the same time, House and Senate negotiators are hashing out their differences on a tax-cutting measure that is likely to include an extension of cuts in the tax rate on dividends and capital gains.

To mainline Protestant groups and some evangelical activists, the twin measures are an affront, especially during the Christmas season. Leaders of five denominations -- the United Methodist Church, Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church USA and United Church of Christ -- issued a joint statement last week calling on Congress to go back to the drawing board and come up with a budget that brings good news to the poor.

Around 300 religious activists have vowed to kneel in prayer this morning at the Cannon House Office Building and remain there until they are arrested. Wallis said that as they are led off, they will chant a phrase from Isaiah: Woe to you legislators of infamous laws . . . who refuse justice to the unfortunate, who cheat the poor among my people of their rights, who make widows their prey and rob the orphan.

To GOP leaders and their supporters in the Christian community, it is not that simple. Acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said yesterday that the activists' position is not intellectually right.

The right tax policy, such as keeping tax rates low on business investment, grows the economy, increases federal revenue -- and increased federal revenue makes it easier for us to pursue policies that we all can agree have social benefit, he said.

Dobson also has praised what he calls pro-family tax cuts. And Janice Crouse, a senior fellow at the Christian group Concerned Women for America, said religious conservatives know that the government is not really capable of love.

You look to the government for justice, and you look to the church and individuals for mercy. I think Hurricane Katrina is a good example of that. FEMA just failed, and the church and the Salvation Army and corporations stepped in and met the need, she said.

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said the government's role should be to encourage charitable giving, perhaps through tax cuts.

There is a [biblical] mandate to take care of the poor. There is no dispute of that fact, he said. But it does not say government should do it. That's a shifting of responsibility.

The Family Research Council is involved in efforts to stop the bloodshed in the Darfur region of Sudan as well as sex trafficking and slavery abroad. But Perkins said those issues are far different from the budget cuts now under protest. The difference there is enforcing laws to keep people from being enslaved, to be sold as sex slaves, he said. We're talking here about massive welfare programs.

The Rev. Richard Cizik, a vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, returned yesterday from the Montreal conference on global climate change, another issue of interest to evangelicals. Frankly, I don't hear a lot of conversation among evangelicals about budget cuts in anti-poverty programs, he said. What I hear our people asking is, why are we spending $231 million on a bridge to nowhere in Alaska and can't find $50 million for African Union forces to stop genocide in Darfur?

At the risk of being called one of the religious fanatics....

Former 9/11 Commissioners: U.S. at Risk