Jersey Girls

Katie Couric Talks To 9/11 Widows Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg And Patty Casazza

(CBS) 
"What will need to happen for people to take the commission's recommendations more seriously?" Couric asks Tom Kean.

"I'm scared to death it will take another attack. I mean, that's what really worries me," he says.

His commission disbanded, Kean has now written a book, and is still fighting to implement the recommendations.

"Who do you blame? Congress? The administration? The American people, quite frankly, who aren't screaming from the mountaintops to get this stuff done?" Couric asks Kean.

"Well it's a combination of blame. I think the president ought to be leading, congressional committees ought to be holding hearings about it," Kean says. "Unfortunately, everybody I've talked to believes that sooner or later there's going to be another attack. Now, if we're not doing everything we can to prevent that attack, God help us."

The "Jersey Girls" blamed the Bush administration, and just before the 2004 elections, they went public. The women announced their support for Sen. John Kerry, saying he fully embraced all of the 9/11 commission's recommendations.

But taking sides came at a price.

"Rush Limbaugh referred to you all as Democratic campaign consultants, not grieving family members. Ann Coulter, in her book, wrote, 'These broads are millionaires, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by 'griefarazzis.' I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much,'" Couric tells the women.

"We fought for their safety as well as our own," says Van Auken. "We were never coached by anybody, never funded by anybody."

"Party difference does not enter your mind when your loved one just called you on the phone to tell you he's gonna die. It's so not political, it's just life and death, if you want to know the truth of it," Casazza says.

"We have not learned the lessons from 9/11," Kleinberg adds. "And when the building blows up or you have another attack, it's not going to make me feel like 'I told you so.' It's going to feel desperately horrible that we could do nothing. Walk with us now so you don't have to walk in our shoes."