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FROM: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/09/politics/09TERR.html?hp
9/11 Commission Says
U.S. Agencies Slow Its Inquiry
By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, July 8 -
The federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks said
today that its work was being hampered
by the failure of executive branch agencies, especially the
Pentagon and the Justice Department, to respond quickly to requests
for documents and testimony.
The panel also said the
failure of the Bush administration to allow officials to be interviewed
without the presence of government colleagues could
impede its investigation, with the commission's chairman
suggesting today that the situation
amounted to "intimidation" of the witnesses.
In what they acknowledged
was an effort to bring public pressure on the White House to meet the
panel's demands for classified information, the commission's Republican
chairman and Democratic vice chairman released a statement, declaring
that they had received only a small
part of the millions of sensitive government documents they
have requested from the executive branch.
While praising President
Bush and top aides for their personal commitment to the panel's work,
the commission's leaders - the chairman, Thomas H. Kean, the former
Republican governor of New Jersey, and Lee H. Hamilton, the former Democratic
member of the House from Indiana - said that federal agencies under
Mr. Bush's control were not cooperating quickly or fully.
"The administration
underestimated the scale of the commission's work and the full breadth
of support required," they said. "The coming weeks will determine
whether we will be able to do our job within the time allotted. The
task in front of us is monumental."
Claire Buchan, a White
House spokeswoman, said today in response to the statement from the
panel, known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
Upon the United States: "The president is committed to ensuring
that the commission has all the information it needs. The president
has directed federal agencies to cooperate and to do so quickly."
Under the law creating
the bipartisan, 10-member panel last year, the commission, which met
for the first time in January, is required to complete its investigation
by next May. "While thousands of documents are flowing in - some
in boxes and some digitized - most of the documents we need are still
to come," the statement said. "Time is slipping by."
The criticism today from
Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton clearly took senior administration officials
by surprise and brought a fresh round of attacks on the White House
from Congressional Democrats who have said that the
administration is trying to stonewall a politically damaging inquiry.
Although the White
House had initially opposed the creation of an independent commission
to investigate intelligence and law-enforcement failures
before the 2001 terrorist strikes, the administration eventually came
around to support the move, and it has repeatedly pledged full cooperation.
The White House chose
Mr. Kean to lead the investigation after its first choice, Henry A.
Kissinger, the former secretary of state, resigned from the post rather
than release a list of clients of his consulting firm. Mr. Hamilton
was named vice chairman by Congressional Democrats after their first
choice, George J. Mitchell, the former Senate Democratic majority leader,
resigned when questions were raised about similar conflicts of interest.
In their statement, Mr.
Kean and Mr. Hamilton said that the "problems
that have arisen so far with the Department of Defense are becoming
particularly serious." They noted that the Pentagon
had not responded to a series of requests for evidence from several
Defense Department agencies, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff and
the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which is responsible for
guarding American airspace from terrorist attack.
"Delays
are lengthening and agency points of contact have so far been unable
to resolve them," the statement said. "In
the last few days, we have been assured that the department's leaders
will address these concerns. We look forward to seeing the results."
Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton
suggested that the Justice Department was behind a
directive barring intelligence officials from being interviewed by the
panel without the presence of agency colleagues.
At a news conference,
Mr. Kean described the presence of "minders" at the interviews
as a form of intimidation. "I think the commission feels unanimously
that it's some intimidation to have somebody sitting behind you all
the time who you either work for or works for your agency," he
said. "You might get less testimony than you would."
"We would rather
interview these people without minders or without agency people there,"
he said.
In their written statement,
the panel's leaders said that the Justice Department had been "unable
to resolve important issues related" to the commission's
access to evidence and testimony from the case
of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person facing trial in an
American court for conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks.
A Defense Department
spokeswoman said tonight that the department
would have no immediate response to the criticism.
A Justice Department
spokesman, Mark Corallo, said that his department remained "committed
to assisting the commission's important work on behalf of the United
States." Mr. Corallo added, however, that "assembling the
enormous amount of information requested takes significant manpower
and time to accomplish."
He defended the administration's
requirement that witnesses be present when some executive branch officials
are interviewed by the panel. "In any investigation in which federal
employees are interviewed, it is standard practice to have another agency
representative present for the benefit of the witnesses and to
help facilitate the investigation," he said.
Although their intent
today was clearly to create discomfort at the White House, Mr. Kean
and Mr. Hamilton said repeatedly that they were optimistic that the
panel could complete its work on time and that it would offer the most
complete account available of the events that led to the terrorist attacks.
FROM: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/09/politics/09TERR.html?hp
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