Report: Govt failures 'not to blame' for 9/11

A “failure of imagination”, not government neglect, allowed 19 hijackers to carry out the deadliest terrorist attack in US history, the September 11 commission has said.

The panel calls for an intelligence overhaul to confront an al-Qaida organisation intent on striking again.

While faulting institutional shortcomings, the bipartisan report being released today does not blame President George Bush nor former President Bill Clinton for mistakes contributing to the 2001 terrorist attacks, Bush administration officials said.

The report, which is the culmination of a 20-month investigation into the plot that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, describes the meticulous planning and determination of hijackers who sought to exploit weaknesses in airline and border procedures by taking test flights.

A surveillance video that surfaced yesterday shows four of the hijackers passing through security gates at Washington Dulles International Airport shortly before boarding the plane they would crash into the Pentagon.

In the video, the hijackers can be seen undergoing additional scrutiny after setting off metal detectors, then being permitted to continue to their gate.

White House officials and congressional leaders were briefed on the panel’s findings, and Bush was to receive a copy just before the 4.30pm Irish time release today.

The president, bracing for a report that will be sharply critical of the government’s intelligence-gathering, said yesterday his administration was doing everything possible to combat terrorism, a major theme of his re-election campaign.

“Had we had any inkling whatsoever that terrorists were about to attack our country, we would have moved heaven and earth to protect America,” Bush said. “I’m confident President Clinton would have done the same thing. Any president would.”

One administration official said the 575-page report concludes that Bush and Clinton took the threat of al-Qaida seriously and were “genuinely concerned about the danger posed by al-Qaida”, but didn’t do enough to stop the terrorist organisation headed by Osama bin Laden.

There was a “failure of imagination” to provide either Bush or Clinton with new options – particularly military approaches – to deal with al-Qaida, the official said.

There also was a failure to adapt to the post-Cold War era, and people just kept trying the same kinds of things that did not work, the official said.

As expected, the report will propose a national counter-terrorism centre headed by a new cabinet-level national director of intelligence. The director would have authority over the CIA, FBI and other agencies, while congressional oversight also would be strengthened.

The commission described a rapidly changing al-Qaida threat that has become more dispersed and harder to detect.

A national intelligence chief would co-ordinate information-sharing and intelligence analysis to thwart al-Qaida terrorists who are keenly interested in launching a chemical, biological or nuclear attack, commissioners say.

The report lists a series of missed operational opportunities to stop the hijackers, such as the bungled attempts to kill or capture bin Laden and the FBI’s handling of terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested in August 2001 before the hijackings, the official said.

It also “debunks” some theories that once circulated widely, such as that the Saudi government had funded the hijackers and that the White House allowed a group of Saudis to slip out of the country just after September 11 when all planes were grounded, the official said.

Commissioners have said the report will fault US congress for poor oversight of intelligence-gathering and criticise government agencies for their emergency responses to the attacks. The harshest criticism will be levelled at the FBI and CIA.

But the 10-member panel declined to recommend a separate domestic spy agency modelled after Britain’s MI5, as some outside experts have suggested, deciding that reform efforts by FBI Director Robert Mueller were on the right track despite the FBI’s historical focus on law enforcement, said Republican Jim Turner.