Author: James Risen and Todd S.
Purdum
Publication: The New York Times
Date: November 23, 2001
Washington, Nov. 22 - Congressional
leaders have agreed to delay until next year any major investigation into
the government's failure to prevent the terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, citing the need to give the administration
time to focus on the war in Afghanistan and the global effort to destroy
the Qaeda terrorist network.
The Democratic chairman and the
ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said
they had agreed to forgo an immediate inquiry into the performance of the
nation's intelligence and law enforcement agencies before the Sept. 11
attacks.
Senator Bob Graham, the Florida
Democrat who heads the intelligence panel, said in an interview that it
would not be appropriate to conduct such an investigation at a time when
the government's focus is on prosecuting the war against the Taliban and
Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Senator Richard C. Shelby, an Alabama
Republican and vice chairman of the panel, agreed, saying a Congressional
investigation now would divert senior intelligence and law enforcement
officials from the war on terrorism.
House leaders, including Representative
Porter J. Goss, the Florida Republican who is the chairman of the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, have also agreed to wait until
next year for such an inquiry, officials said. Mr. Goss could not be reached
for comment.
Both senators said they had been
in touch with the White House about the issue and said there was now a
broad agreement to put off any Sept. 11 inquiry. They added that there
had been discussion of a possible inquiry by a blue-ribbon presidential
board separate from those expected to be pursued by Congress. A White House
spokesman said, however, that it was "premature to speculate" on any plans
for a presidential investigation.
Senator Graham said that he believed
a wide-ranging investigation was necessary but that it was premature to
conduct one now.
"It is very important that there
be a thorough and thoughtful investigation, looking at a wide range of
issues - intelligence, law enforcement, immigration and domestic preparation,"
he said. "But just a few weeks after Sept. 11 is not the time to do it."
Senator Shelby added: "We are not
going to do it until next year. It has to be well thought out and well
prepared to be worthwhile."
In fact, while the schedule has
been delayed, there seems little doubt that a major inquest - like those
that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor - into what went wrong
on Sept. 11 is inevitable.
Warren B. Rudman, the former Republican
senator who is now the chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board, said senior officials in the Central Intelligence Agency
and other intelligence agencies had made it clear that they would like
more time before any Sept. 11 post-mortems are begun.
"The agency's and the entire intelligence
community's view is that considering what's going on right now, that it
would be an enormous demand on the time of their leadership, and it would
be a distraction, and I agree with that," Mr. Rudman said.
Mr. Rudman, who was appointed to
the advisory board by President Bill Clinton, said the panel had no current
plans to conduct an inquiry, even though its main function is oversight
of the intelligence community. Mr. Rudman is the only current member on
the advisory board, since the Bush administration has not yet filled the
vacancies left by the expiration of the terms of other Clinton- era members.
Mr. Rudman is due to be replaced
as chairman of the board by Brent Scowcroft, a retired general who served
as national security adviser in the first Bush administration, but Mr.
Scowcroft is so closely identified with the Bush family that Congressional
leaders and other officials said it would be difficult for him to conduct
an investigation that would be considered objective and credible.
"I would suggest that if the White
House does something, it should be a new blue-ribbon commission, with people
who are not tied to anybody," Senator Shelby said. "I respect General Scowcroft,
but he was tied to the Bush administration."
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont
Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees
the Justice Department, said his panel would also not conduct a Sept. 11
investigation until next year. But Mr. Shelby said that was only because
the committee had too much other business to conduct first, including a
hearing to question Attorney General John Ashcroft about administration
actions to give law enforcement officials greater powers in the fight against
terrorism.
"Nobody has talked to me about holding
off," Mr. Leahy said, "but just mechanically, we can't get to it until
next year. But we will look into it."
A no-holds-barred investigation
into intelligence lapses could be perilous for Republicans and Democrats
alike. If the inquiry focused on why the United States did not take the
threat from Osama bin Laden more seriously before Sept. 11, officials from
the Bush administration and the Clinton administration could find themselves
on the defensive.
The Clinton administration could
face questions about its response to the August 1998 bombings of two United
States embassies in East Africa by Al Qaeda. The Bush administration could
face scrutiny for failing to take aggressive action earlier this year against
the terror network after the October 2000 bombing of the destroyer Cole
in Yemen.
As a result, leading lawmakers want
to avoid hearings that could easily slide into partisan finger- pointing.
"The blame game doesn't fix the
problem," said Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat and ranking
member of the new Intelligence Subcommittee on Terrorism Homeland Security.
"One could argue that not enough was done during the eight Clinton years,
and in hindsight of course that's true. But not enough is still being done,
and we're already two months after Sept. 11. I don't intend that as a comment
blaming the new crowd. But shame on us all."
