Subject: [NEXTEL-1] 9/11 Panel Scolds Ex-Police, Fire Chiefs

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 07:55:04 -0400

9/11 Panel Scolds Ex-Police, Fire Chiefs

By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - The former police and fire chiefs who were lionized after the
World Trade Center attack came under harsh criticism Tuesday from the
Sept. 11 commission, with one member saying the departments' lack of
cooperation was scandalous and "not worthy of the Boy Scouts."

Commission members, in New York for an emotional two-day hearing,
focused on how leaders of the two departments failed to share
information effectively in the early frantic moments after two hijacked
planes slammed into the World Trade Center.
Former fire commissioner Thomas Von Essen and former police chief
Bernard Kerik shot back with infuriated responses to commissioner John
Lehman's questions, the strongest of a series of pointed statements from
the panel.

"I couldn't disagree with you more strongly," Von Essen replied. "I
think it's outrageous that you make a statement like that." Outside the
hearing, he called the questioning "despicable."

Families of Sept. 11 victims applauded the tough questioning and shook
their heads sadly as the panel enumerated a litany of communication
breakdowns between the departments. Family members sporadically mocked
and booed Von Essen, Kerik and Richard Sheirer, former Office of
Emergency Management commissioner, and they wept earlier in the day as
they watched videotape of the buildings collapsing.

As Von Essen testified, Sally Regenhard _ who lost her firefighter son _
held up a piece of paper reading: "LIES."
The 10-member bipartisan panel has been holding hearings over the last
year, including high-profile meetings in Washington last month about
intelligence failures, to examine what led to the attacks and determine
ways to avoid future attacks. The panel will issue its final report July
26.

Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was scheduled to testify at the second day
of hearings Wednesday.
While the New York hearings _ held 1 1/2 miles from ground zero _ were
meant to examine problems in the city's emergency response system,
officials also were asked about what they knew about terrorism threats
in the months before Sept. 11.
The former director of the World Trade Center told the commission that
he knew nothing of Osama bin Laden's terror network until the summer
before the attacks, and was never privy to FBI intelligence that Islamic
terrorists might hijack U.S. planes.
Alan Reiss said he first heard about bin Laden's al-Qaida network when
ex-FBI agent John O'Neill was hired in the summer of 2001 as head of
security at the trade center. O'Neill, who had hunted bin Laden for
years, was one of the 2,749 people killed in the attack.

"I was aware of the plot against some of the other Port Authority
tunnels and the U.N.," Reiss testified. "But we were never briefed" by
the FBI.

Reiss also said he was more focused on fending off possible bioterrorism
attacks such as anthrax, spending more than $100,000 to protect the
building from such an assault.

"We felt this (anthrax) was the next coming wave," he said. "We had
developed plans on how to isolate the air conditioning system and shut
it down but never did we have a thought of what happened on 9-11."

Reiss bristled under questioning from commission member Bob Kerrey, who
asked him if he is angry that "things might have been different had they
(FBI) trusted you enough" to deliver important intelligence.

Reiss said he was not angry at the FBI, but rather at "19 people in an
airplane," referring to the hijackers.
Kerrey said he shared Reiss' anger. "These 19 people ... defeated the
INS, they defeated the Customs (Department), they defeated the FBI, they
defeated the CIA," the former Nebraska senator said as family members of
the victims chimed in with the loudest applause of the morning.

But Kerrey said he was more concerned that "we may not be delivering the
key intelligence, the facts, the information" to the first responders.

Later, the miscommunication was termed "a scandal" by Lehman, who then
complained it was "not worthy of the Boy Scouts, let alone this great
city."

Family members cheered when commission member Slade Gorton launched an
aggressive line of questioning about the city's 911 emergency system to
Kerik, Von Essen and Sheirer.

When the agency heads tried to defer to their successors, Gorton refused
to let them. "I'm asking ... what was going on Sept. 11," Gorton said to
applause from the families.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly was asked if the city was prepared to
handle a chemical attack with 10,000 injuries. "I would say no," he
replied.

For some family members, it was a day for reflection rather than
protest. Terry McGovern, whose mother died in the south tower, said she
came away with an understanding of what happened that day.

"For me, it was reliving what my mother heard, what she saw, what her
last moments were," McGovern said.
The hearing began with a commission report recounting how city officials
were forced to make life-and-death decisions based on incomplete
communications, leading to some of the deaths in the twin 110-story
buildings.

The communication problems resulted in incidents such as the deaths of
Port Authority workers told to wait for help on the 64th floor of one
tower. Many of them died when the building collapsed.

Communications breakdowns also prevented announcements to evacuate from
reaching civilians in one of the buildings. One survivor recounted
calling 911 from the 44th floor of the south tower, only to be placed on
hold twice.

That was not a surprise, since emergency operators had a "lack of
awareness" about what was happening at the twin towers and were
overwhelmed by the sheer volume of calls, said commission staffer Sam
Casperson.
Associated Press Writers Sara Kugler and Michael Weissenstein
contributed to this report.

On the Net:

http://www.9-11commission.gov/

http://www.comcast.net/News/DOMESTIC//XML/1110_AP_Online_Regional___National__US_/3081da58-abde-4944-9b7a-cc4194b526b2.html

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 15:22:20 -0400

The media is just trying to hype this up.

-------- Original Message --------
From: "Reiss, Alan" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [WFHSG] 9/11 Panel Scolds Ex-Police, Fire Chiefs
To: "[email-masked]'" <[email-masked]>

Gee, I would not say I bristled, I just tried to speak from the heart
and
tell the story of a bunch of civilians who had run the wtc for years and
suddenly found themselves on the frontline of a new war. 

We did the best we could that day and 16 of my stafff never went home. 

If anyone wants my written testimony I can fwd to the group later. The
911
commission will eventually post it. 
Alan Reiss
Deputy Director Aviation
Port Authority of NY & NJ
212-435-3701
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] <[email-masked]>
To: WFHSG <[email-masked]>
Sent: Wed May 19 03:32:55 2004
Subject: [WFHSG] 9/11 Panel Scolds Ex-Police, Fire Chiefs

On the Net:

http://www.comcast.net/News/DOMESTIC//XML/1110_AP_Online_Regional___National
__US_/3081da58-abde-4944-9b7a-cc4194b526b2.html

 
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