9-11-2001         

From CBS News, 12/17/03:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/17/eveningnews/main589137.shtml

9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable

NEW YORK, Dec. 17, 2003

"This was not something that had to happen."

Thomas Kean, chairman of Sept. 11 commission

(CBS)

For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission
investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could
have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent
Randall Pinkston.

"This is a very, very important part of history and we've got to tell
it right," said Thomas Kean.

"As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what
wasn't done and what should have been done," he said.

"This was not something that had to happen."

Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican
governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the
administration and laying blame.

"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. They
simply failed," Kean said.

To find out who failed and why, the commission has navigated a
political landmine, threatening a subpoena to gain access to the
president's top-secret daily briefs.

Those documents may shed light on one of the most controversial
assertions of the Bush administration -- that there was never any
thought given to the idea that terrorists might fly an airplane into a
building.

"I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use
an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," said
national security adviser Condoleeza Rice on May 16, 2002.

"How is it possible we have a national security advisor coming out and
saying we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI
records from 1991 stating that this is a possibility," said Kristen
Breitweiser, one of four New Jersey widows who lobbied Congress and
the president to appoint the commission.Back to Top