9/11 Panel: U.S. Fails Terror Test
Commission Issues Scathing Final Report On U.S. Security Response
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Report: Unprepared For Terror
The former 9/11 commission released its final report, which says that the U.S. government is ill equipped to prevent another terrorist attack. Bob Orr reports.
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U.S. Vulnerable To Terror
The former Sept. 11 commission graded the government on readiness for another terror attack, and reports many recommendations were not followed. Bob Orr reports.
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Unprepared For Another Attack
The former 9-11 commission issued a new report that gives the U.S. government a failing grade when it comes to measures to prevent a future terrorist attack. Drew Levinson reports on the findings.
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Mary Fetchet, whose 24-year-old son Brad was killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center, wipes away tears as she listens to members of the 9/11 Public Discourse Project. (AP)
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Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, steps away from the podium after delivering remarks during a news conference issuing a final assessment of progress on the 9/11 commission recommendations, Monday, Dec. 5, 2005, in Washington. (AP)
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Sept. 11 Commission
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But in a scathing final report Monday, the former 9/11 commission warned that the U.S. remains at great risk to another terrorist attack.
The panel cited disjointed airplane passenger screening methods, pork-barrel security funding and other problems in saying the Bush administration and Congress had not moved quickly enough to enact the majority of its recommendations of July 2004.
"We're frustrated, all of us — frustrated at the lack of urgency in addressing these various problems," said Thomas Kean, a Republican and former New Jersey governor who was chairman of the commission.
"We shouldn't need another wake-up call," Kean said Monday. "We believe that the terrorists will strike again; so does every responsible expert that we have talked to. And if they do, and these reforms that might have prevented such an attack have not been implemented, what will our excuse be?"
View the report card (.pdf).Rather than disbanding like most federally appointed commissions when their terms expire, Kean and the other nine commissioners continued their work as a private entity called the 9/11 Public Discourse Project.
In what they say is their final assessment of the government's counterterror performance, panel members gave failing "F" grades in five areas, and issued only one "A" — actually an A-minus — for the Bush administration's efforts to curb terrorist financing.
The five "F"s were for:
The panel, which has operated as a nonprofit group since disbanding last year, also gave the government 12 "D"s and "B"s, nine "C"s and two incomplete grades.
Commission members say homeland security dollars have been squandered, CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports. Police and fire crews like those who struggled in Hurricane Katrina still can't talk to one another by radio. Columbus, Ohio, bought bulletproof vests for its fire department dogs. And Newark, New Jersey bought air-conditioned trash trucks.
"If our children in our country were receiving five F's and 12 D's, they would be repeating grades. We can't have our government, that's supposed to be protecting us, getting this kind of scandalous report card," former Congressman Tim Roemer, a member of the panel, told CBS News' The Early Show.
©MMV CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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