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9/11 Chair: There's No Evidence to Blame Clinton or Bush
Teams WASHINGTON
– The chairman of a federal commission looking into the Sept. 11 attacks
said Thursday that mistakes over many years left the United States vulnerable
to such an attack, but he resisted pinning blame on either of the last two
presidential teams. "We
have no evidence that anybody high in the Clinton administration or the Bush
administration did anything wrong," chairman Thomas Kean said in an
interview with ABC's "Nightline" taped for airing Thursday night. Kean
said the 10-member National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United
States has not decided whether to ask former President Clinton or President
Bush to testify. He also said that any conclusions about the performance of
high-level officials "will be reached when we are finished with our job,
not now." Kean
sought to clarify remarks attributed to him in a CBS News report that aired
Wednesday. In
the CBS interview, Kean said the commission's report, due May 27, will detail
"what wasn't done and what should have be done" to prevent the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks. He
added, "There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not
be in the position they were in at that time because they failed." CBS
reported that Kean's comments constituted "pointing fingers inside the
(Bush) administration and laying blame." On
Thursday, Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark labeled Kean's
statements "disturbing" and said they showed the Bush administration
could have done more to protect America from a terrorist attack. Sen.
Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said Kean's comments meant "that Bush administration
officials had valuable information that could have prevented the terrorist
attacks." But
Kean said in Thursday's interview that he did not mean to suggest that certain
federal officials should have been fired after Sept. 11. He said he was commenting
on obvious mistakes that were made, such as letting terrorists into the country
and letting dangerous items onto planes. "There
are a number of steps along the way, that if they had occurred differently,
this event wouldn't have occurred," he said. White
House press secretary Scott McClellan said he reviewed the CBS report and did
not believe Kean leveled accusations against the Bush administration. "There
is nothing that we have seen that leads us to believe that Sept. 11 could have
been prevented," McClellan said. Kean,
a former Republican governor of New Jersey, was appointed by Bush to lead the
bipartisan commission. ©
2003 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Charles
Mims |
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