9/11 PANEL CHIEFS RIP FEDS' 'LIES'
By HOPE YEN, AP
August 5, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - The Sept. 11 commission was so frustrated with repeated misstatements by the Pentagon and Federal Aviation Administration about their response to the terror attacks that it considered investigating possible deception, the panel's chairmen say in a new book. Republican Thomas Kean and Democrat Lee Hamilton also say in "Without Precedent" that their panel was too soft in questioning Rudy Giuliani - and that the 20-month investigation may have suffered for it.
The book, a behind-the-scenes look at the investigation, recounts obstacles the authors say were thrown up by the Bush administration and internal disputes over President Bush's use of 9/11 as a reason for invading Iraq.
Kean and Hamilton said the commission found it mind-boggling that authorities had asserted during hearings that their air defenses were prepared to shoot down United Airlines Flight 93, which was headed toward Washington. In fact, the commission determined that the shootdown order did not reach North American Aerospace Command pilots until after all of the hijacked planes had crashed.
The book states that commission staff, "exceedingly frustrated" by what they thought could be deception, proposed a full review into why the FAA and the Pentagon's NORAD had presented inaccurate information. That ultimately could have led to sanctions.
The panel ultimately referred the matter to the inspectors general at the Pentagon and Transportation Department.
The questioning of Giuliani was considered by Kean and Hamilton "a low point" in public hearings. "We did not ask tough questions, nor did we get all of the information we needed to put on the public record," they wrote.
Commission members backed off, Kean and Hamilton said, after drawing criticism in newspaper editorials for sharp questioning of New York fire and police officials at earlier hearings.
"It proved difficult, if not impossible, to raise hard questions about 9/11 in New York without it being perceived as criticism of the individual police and firefighters or of Mayor Giuliani," Kean and Hamilton said.