ASHINGTON, Sept. 18 - Members of the independent Sept.
11 commission have received pledges of nearly $1 million for a private
educational group they have created to press for enactment of the panel's
recommendations, commission officials said Friday.
The group, the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, opened an office here
this week and has a Web site, www.9-11pdp.org, where the 10 former
commissioners said in a message that the "perils of inaction are far too
high - and the strategic value of the commission's findings too important
- for the work of the 9/11 commission not to continue."
The panel's final report, issued in July, has created a whirlwind of
activity at the White House and on Capitol Hill, with a bipartisan group
of lawmakers rushing to complete work on bills to enact many of its
recommendations before Election Day.
President Bush has said he supports the central
recommendation to establish the position of national intelligence
director, and on Thursday he provided Congress with draft legislation to
do that.
The draft met with a mixed reception. Some lawmakers said the plan did
not give the director the full range of powers recommended by the 9/11
panel. And, Congressional aides said the plan, which is likely to form the
outline of legislation that House Republican leaders are drafting, also
allowed the government to continue to classify intelligence budgets that
the panel wanted to be made public.
A spokesman for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, John Feehery, said in an
interview that he believed the White House proposals would probably be
incorporated into a House bill to be introduced within days. "Obviously,"
Mr. Feehery said, "we've been talking to them extensively, and I think the
proposals are very close."
Officials of the 9/11 panel said that the new project had received the
pledges of nearly $1 million from a group of foundations and that the
donors' identities would be made public after final commitments for the
donations had been received.
"There will be no corporate money," said Al Felzenberg, spokesman for
both the panel and the new group.
Mr. Felzenberg said in an interview that he would be one of the five
paid employees of the project, which will be led by Christopher Kojm, the
deputy staff director of the 9/11 panel and a State Department official
under President Bill Clinton and the current President Bush.
Mr. Kojm will have the title of president, though commission officials
said the work of the group would largely be directed by the commission
chairman, former Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey, a Republican, and its
vice chairman, former Representative Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana, a
Democrat.
A statement on the Web site said the project would "undertake a
yearlong nationwide public education campaign" to add to "the
understanding of American citizens of the nature of the terrorist threat."
Timothy J. Roemer, another former Democratic congressman from Indiana
and a panel member said: "This is a temporary operation to serve the
purpose of educating the American public about the recommendations of the
commission and to encourage the White House and Congress to implement
those recommendations."
Commission members have voiced support for two bills before the Senate.
But Mr. Roemer, like other commission members, said he was more anxious
about the intentions of the House, where Republican leaders have been
unwilling to commit to many specific recommendations.
"It doesn't look to be a bipartisan process at this point in the
House," he said. "We'd like to see pressure exerted on the House by the
American people and the White House."
