9-11 Commission Warns U.S. Still Vulnerable 10 Years After Attacks

Seven members of the 9/11 commission accused lawmakers Wednesday of leaving the U.S. vulnerable to attacks by failing to implement the recommendation the commission made in 2004.

“We are safer but we are not as secure yet as we can or should be,” Chairman Thomas Kean told the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) in Washington, D.C.

The commission’s original report contained 41 recommendations to improve US security. Due to insufficient progress, however, the committee issued a new report Wednesday detailing nine commission recommendations that remain unfulfilled and are causing a gap in the country’s security. 

Among those failures was the stubbornness of Congress.

“Reformation of congress was a frustrating thing to ask but we still asked for it,” Commissioner Fred F. Fielding stated. “However, they did not make the bicameral committee we requested and instead are maintaining the status quo.”

One lawmaker, however, responded by accusing the administration of dragging its feet on cracking down on so-called “lone-wolf” terrorists operating inside the U.S.

“I am troubled that the White House has not named a lead federal agency to coordinate disparate efforts to combat homegrown terrorism,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. “I urge the Administration to establish a unified front against this important and evolving threat.”

Commission Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton related that the nation’s detection system falls short in critical ways. While the US has improved its security check on those who arrive in the country, there is still an ineffective system that monitors who leaves the country or remains in the country with expired visas. Hamilton revealed that this is exactly how two 9-11 attackers were able to escape capture. 

Another failure of the commission that all panelists agreed upon was their inability to place full control of the entire intelligence community in the hands of the Director of National Intelligence.

Overall, panelists revealed that there are still many communication issues within the government, ambiguity with how to deal with detainees, under developed cyber security and ineffective research and testing performed by Transportation Security on explosive-detection equipment.

“The commission laid out recommendations in a functioning reality,” Hamilton deplored, “and I have no idea why it has not been done.”

While the report seems very grim, panelists did agree that the US is extensively safer than it was 10 years ago.

“We have definitely seen progress but we can’t pat ourselves on the back too strongly,” Hamilton warned. “We haven’t solved the problem and this is great criticism of the US government.”

Senate Grills DNI Nominee On Defense Contractors

Robert Hune-Kalter - Talk Radio News Service

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) nominee Gen. Jim Clapper testified Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee. If confirmed, he would become the fourth director of the fairly young department. 

Today, the Washington Post published the second of a three-part series detailing how heavily the Department of Defense (DoD) relies on contractors to do, among other things, intelligence gathering. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) expressed concern to Clapper over the large number of civilian contractors currently carrying out such work.

“The use of contractors needs to continue to decrease substantially,” said Feinstein.

Clapper told the committee that he believes the bloated number will come down naturally. History, he said, shows that the size of the nation’s intelligence community has fluctuated based on events.

“We were constricting facilities, [employing] fewer people, then 9/11 occurred. We put the breaks on screech, and then had to rejuvenate and re-expand the intelligence community,” he said. “Of course, the obvious way to do that is through contractors.”

Clapper said the giant number of contractors will swing back like a pendulum, and compared the situation faced by the intelligence community now, to the problem the U.S. faced after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the Pentagon reduced its intelligence force by 20 percent.  

Multiple members of the committee asked Clapper to confirm that the DNI is the clear leader of the intelligence committee.

“I would not have agreed to take this position on if I were to be a titular figure or a hood ornament,” he replied.  “There needs to be a clear, defined, [and] identifiable leader of the intelligence community to exert direction and control over the entirety of that community.”