Commission's work is far from complete

WASHINGTON - The panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks has yet to uncover a single event that would have prevented them, but after more than a year of work it has found numerous missteps by the Clinton and Bush administrations.

There were miscommunications among agencies, flawed policy-making and bureaucratic breakdowns. Among them:

A hesitancy to use force against al-Qaida, despite signs the organization could be planning a spectacular attack.

Missed chances to kill Osama bin Laden due to lack of detailed intelligence.

Failure to follow up on opportunities to stop hijackers from entering the country or getting on the planes they used to mount the attacks.

"It's not any one thing," said former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a Republican and the commission chairman. "It was a systematic failure."

Congress created the commission in late 2002 to study the nation's preparedness before Sept. 11, 2001, and its response to the attacks, and to recommend ways to prevent such disasters. The panel's review was delayed for months as it battled Bush officials over access to documents and witnesses.

After poring through more than 2-million documents - some obtained through subpoena threats - the commission has begun to publicly reveal preliminary findings. It is scheduled to hold three more public hearings and on July 26 will issue a final report that could have a huge impact on the presidential election.

This week's two-day hearing featured sworn testimony from top officials. But former counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke generated the most attention - and the sharpest questioning - with his pointed criticism of the Bush administration's efforts.

The commission has not assigned blame but has pointed out that decisions by both administrations allowed bin Laden and al-Qaida to largely operate with impunity. For example:

Both administrations chose to rely on Afghan fighters to attempt to take out bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders, even though CIA director George Tenet acknowledged there was little chance of success.

Tenet believed the CIA could only kill bin Laden while trying to capture him, while National Security Council officials believed President Bill Clinton wanted him dead by any means necessary.

U.S. authorities failed to stop at least two and as many as eight of the 19 hijackers who entered the country with improper documentation. They also permitted nine of them to pass through airport security after being stopped for suspicious behavior.

Two of the hijackers were on a government terrorist watch list called Tipoff, but airline officials were unaware because it was separate from the Federal Aviation Administration's list of people barred from flying.

Before Sept. 11, U.S. immigration policy focused on turning away illegal immigrants rather than looking for terrorist threats.

The panel will hold a two-day hearing April 13-14 on intelligence failures, with Tenet scheduled to provide additional testimony. It also plans private interviews with Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore, but has yet to arrange similar meetings with Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney because they have only agreed to be interviewed by just two commissioners.

"I'm not going to reach any conclusions at this point," Democratic commissioner Jamie Gorelick said Thursday on NBC's Today. "We still have hearings to go and deliberations to have."

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