Friday, August 19, 2005
Victims' Families Outraged, Want New 9/11 Panel
The families of 9/11 victims are outraged that military spies were blocked from sharing key intelligence they believe could have averted the terrorist attacks – and are calling for a new commission to investigate.
"I’m angry that my son's death could have been prevented," Diana Horning, whose son was killed at the World Trade Center, told the New York Post.
"It outrages me because it's taken four years to come out."
Horning and other family members of 9/11 victims are up in arms over the disclosure that the elite military intelligence unit "Able Danger" had identified Mohamed Atta and three other Sept. 11 hijackers more than a year before the attacks, but military lawyers stopped the unit from sharing that information with the FBI.
"I don't think you can understate the significance here," Mindy Kleinberg, a member of the Sept. 11 Advocates, a coalition of family members, told the Post.
"You're talking about the four lead hijackers. If we shared information and did surveillance on them, there is no telling what we could have uncovered and what we could have thwarted.
"I think we do need a new commission, and that's really sad."
Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, has said the Sept. 11 Commission did not adequately investigate the report that four of the hijackers had been identified.
And Bill Doyle, whose son was killed on 9/11, ripped Jamie Gorelick, President Clinton's deputy attorney general, who codified the separation between intelligence and investigative agencies in a 1995 memo – then was chosen to serve on the Sept. 11 Commission investigating the attacks.
"What is disheartening," said Doyle, "is from the beginning, we said Jamie Gorelick had a conflict of interest."
The families of 9/11 victims are outraged that military spies were blocked from sharing key intelligence they believe could have averted the terrorist attacks – and are calling for a new commission to investigate.
"I’m angry that my son's death could have been prevented," Diana Horning, whose son was killed at the World Trade Center, told the New York Post.
"It outrages me because it's taken four years to come out."
Horning and other family members of 9/11 victims are up in arms over the disclosure that the elite military intelligence unit "Able Danger" had identified Mohamed Atta and three other Sept. 11 hijackers more than a year before the attacks, but military lawyers stopped the unit from sharing that information with the FBI.
"I don't think you can understate the significance here," Mindy Kleinberg, a member of the Sept. 11 Advocates, a coalition of family members, told the Post.
"You're talking about the four lead hijackers. If we shared information and did surveillance on them, there is no telling what we could have uncovered and what we could have thwarted.
"I think we do need a new commission, and that's really sad."
Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, has said the Sept. 11 Commission did not adequately investigate the report that four of the hijackers had been identified.
And Bill Doyle, whose son was killed on 9/11, ripped Jamie Gorelick, President Clinton's deputy attorney general, who codified the separation between intelligence and investigative agencies in a 1995 memo – then was chosen to serve on the Sept. 11 Commission investigating the attacks.
"What is disheartening," said Doyle, "is from the beginning, we said Jamie Gorelick had a conflict of interest."
