Clinton, 9/11 and the Facts

[Koyaanisqatsi]

[Only registered and activated users can see links]

Clinton, 9/11 and the Facts
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Wednesday 30 August 2006

The fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks is less than two weeks away, but the avalanche has already begun. Oliver Stone's film "World Trade Center" has been advertised in all corners and is being screened across the nation. CNN has announced that it intends, on the 11th, to rebroadcast all of the coverage of the attacks from 8:30 a.m. until midnight. If you don't have cable, they say, you can watch it for free on the CNN web site.

ABC intends to mark the occasion in far more grand a fashion. Starting September 10th and ending September 11th, the network will show a miniseries titled "The Path to 9/11." According to reports from early screenings, the writer/producer of the miniseries, Cyrus Nowrasteh, has crafted a television polemic intended to blame the entire event on President Clinton.

Nowrasteh, an outspoken conservative of Persian descent whose family fled Iran after the fall of the Shah, spoke last year at the Liberty Film Festival, described by its founders as Hollywood's first conservative film festival. Govindini Murty, actress, writer, and co-director of the Liberty Film Festival, wrote a review of "The Path to 9/11" for the right-wing online news page FrontPageMag.com.

In the review, Murty states, "'The Path to 9/11' is one of the best, most intelligent, most pro-American miniseries I've ever seen on TV, and conservatives should support it and promote it as vigorously as possible. This is the first Hollywood production I've seen that honestly depicts how the Clinton administration repeatedly bungled the capture of Osama bin Laden."

FrontPageMag, it should be noted, held a symposium back in May to argue that the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which were never found despite being the main reason for invasion, were actually spirited out of Iraq by Russia on the eve of the 2003 attack. So it goes.

Leaving aside the wretched truth that the far right is once again using September 11 to score political points, the facts regarding the still-lingering effort to blame the Clinton administration for the attacks must be brought to the fore. Nowrasteh, at several points in his miniseries, rolls out a number of oft-debunked allegations that Clinton allowed Osama bin Laden to remain alive and free before the attacks.

Roger Cressy, National Security Council senior director for counterterrorism in the period 1999-2001, responded to these allegations in an article for the Washington Times in 2003. "Mr. Clinton approved every request made of him by the CIA and the U.S. military involving using force against bin Laden and al-Qaeda," wrote Cressy. "As President Bush well knows, bin Laden was and remains very good at staying hidden. The current administration faces many of the same challenges. Confusing the American people with misinformation and distortions will not generate the support we need to come together as a nation and defeat our terrorist enemies."


Measures taken by the Clinton administration to thwart international terrorism and bin Laden's network were historic, unprecedented and, sadly, not followed up on. Consider the steps offered by Clinton's 1996 omnibus anti-terror legislation, the pricetag for which stood at $1.097 billion. The following is a partial list of the initiatives offered by the Clinton anti-terrorism bill:
Screen Checked Baggage: $91.1 million
Screen Carry-On Baggage: $37.8 million
Passenger Profiling: $10 million
Screener Training: $5.3 million
Screen Passengers (portals) and Document Scanners: $1 million
Deploying Existing Technology to Inspect International Air Cargo: $31.4
million
Provide Additional Air/Counterterrorism Security: $26.6 million
Explosives Detection Training: $1.8 million
Augment FAA Security Research: $20 million
Customs Service: Explosives and Radiation Detection Equipment at Ports: $2.2 million
Anti-Terrorism Assistance to Foreign Governments: $2 million
Capacity to Collect and Assemble Explosives Data: $2.1 million
Improve Domestic Intelligence: $38.9 million
Critical Incident Response Teams for Post-Blast Deployment: $7.2 million
Additional Security for Federal Facilities: $6.7 million
Firefighter/Emergency Services Financial Assistance: $2.7 million
Public Building and Museum Security: $7.3 million
Improve Technology to Prevent Nuclear Smuggling: $8 million
Critical Incident Response Facility: $2 million
Counter-Terrorism Fund: $35 million
Explosives Intelligence and Support Systems: $14.2 million
Office of Emergency Preparedness: $5.8 millionMore here: [Only registered and activated users can see links]

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Will concludes with this plea to have ABC's miniseries pulled:



Back in 2003, CBS was forced to pull its miniseries "The Reagans," after conservative groups lambasted the network for crossing the line into advocacy against the Reagan administration. A similar effort should perhaps be undertaken to compel ABC to pull "The Path to 9/11." At no time should a conservative producer with an anti-Clinton axe to grind be allowed to use public airwaves to broadcast a rank distortion of the truth, especially on the anniversary of the worst day in our history.


Here is ABC's contact page if you would like to air an opinion:

[Only registered and activated users can see links]

[webhead]

Will concludes with this plea to have ABC's miniseries pulled:



Here is ABC's contact page if you would like to air an opinion:

[Only registered and activated users can see links]
I'd send ABC a postcard with my "Fuck You - Strong Letter to Follow" stamp, but there is not enough time. So I will just send a strong note per link you provided.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

[SouthernDem2006]

[Only registered and activated users can see links]

Clinton, 9/11 and the Facts
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Wednesday 30 August 2006

The fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks is less than two weeks away, but the avalanche has already begun. Oliver Stone's film "World Trade Center" has been advertised in all corners and is being screened across the nation. CNN has announced that it intends, on the 11th, to rebroadcast all of the coverage of the attacks from 8:30 a.m. until midnight. If you don't have cable, they say, you can watch it for free on the CNN web site.

ABC intends to mark the occasion in far more grand a fashion. Starting September 10th and ending September 11th, the network will show a miniseries titled "The Path to 9/11." According to reports from early screenings, the writer/producer of the miniseries, Cyrus Nowrasteh, has crafted a television polemic intended to blame the entire event on President Clinton.

Nowrasteh, an outspoken conservative of Persian descent whose family fled Iran after the fall of the Shah, spoke last year at the Liberty Film Festival, described by its founders as Hollywood's first conservative film festival. Govindini Murty, actress, writer, and co-director of the Liberty Film Festival, wrote a review of "The Path to 9/11" for the right-wing online news page FrontPageMag.com.

In the review, Murty states, "'The Path to 9/11' is one of the best, most intelligent, most pro-American miniseries I've ever seen on TV, and conservatives should support it and promote it as vigorously as possible. This is the first Hollywood production I've seen that honestly depicts how the Clinton administration repeatedly bungled the capture of Osama bin Laden."

FrontPageMag, it should be noted, held a symposium back in May to argue that the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which were never found despite being the main reason for invasion, were actually spirited out of Iraq by Russia on the eve of the 2003 attack. So it goes.

Leaving aside the wretched truth that the far right is once again using September 11 to score political points, the facts regarding the still-lingering effort to blame the Clinton administration for the attacks must be brought to the fore. Nowrasteh, at several points in his miniseries, rolls out a number of oft-debunked allegations that Clinton allowed Osama bin Laden to remain alive and free before the attacks.

Roger Cressy, National Security Council senior director for counterterrorism in the period 1999-2001, responded to these allegations in an article for the Washington Times in 2003. "Mr. Clinton approved every request made of him by the CIA and the U.S. military involving using force against bin Laden and al-Qaeda," wrote Cressy. "As President Bush well knows, bin Laden was and remains very good at staying hidden. The current administration faces many of the same challenges. Confusing the American people with misinformation and distortions will not generate the support we need to come together as a nation and defeat our terrorist enemies."


Measures taken by the Clinton administration to thwart international terrorism and bin Laden's network were historic, unprecedented and, sadly, not followed up on. Consider the steps offered by Clinton's 1996 omnibus anti-terror legislation, the pricetag for which stood at $1.097 billion. The following is a partial list of the initiatives offered by the Clinton anti-terrorism bill:
Screen Checked Baggage: $91.1 million
Screen Carry-On Baggage: $37.8 million
Passenger Profiling: $10 million
Screener Training: $5.3 million
Screen Passengers (portals) and Document Scanners: $1 million
Deploying Existing Technology to Inspect International Air Cargo: $31.4
million
Provide Additional Air/Counterterrorism Security: $26.6 million
Explosives Detection Training: $1.8 million
Augment FAA Security Research: $20 million
Customs Service: Explosives and Radiation Detection Equipment at Ports: $2.2 million
Anti-Terrorism Assistance to Foreign Governments: $2 million
Capacity to Collect and Assemble Explosives Data: $2.1 million
Improve Domestic Intelligence: $38.9 million
Critical Incident Response Teams for Post-Blast Deployment: $7.2 million
Additional Security for Federal Facilities: $6.7 million
Firefighter/Emergency Services Financial Assistance: $2.7 million
Public Building and Museum Security: $7.3 million
Improve Technology to Prevent Nuclear Smuggling: $8 million
Critical Incident Response Facility: $2 million
Counter-Terrorism Fund: $35 million
Explosives Intelligence and Support Systems: $14.2 million
Office of Emergency Preparedness: $5.8 millionMore here: [Only registered and activated users can see links]


Actual info on movie:

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[Only registered and activated users can see links]
[Only registered and activated users can see links]


I am not a big fan of censorship.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Actual info on movie:

[Only registered and activated users can see links]
[Only registered and activated users can see links]
[Only registered and activated users can see links]


I am not a big fan of censorship.

If you'd rather not request the film be pulled, perhaps you would still find it acceptable to point ABC to the information Will Pitt addresses in his piece I've linked?

[SouthernDem2006]

If you'd rather not request the film be pulled, perhaps you would still find it acceptable to point ABC to the information Will Pitt addresses in his piece I've linked?

I am sure they are more then aware.

Did President Clinton make mistakes? Sure, who doesnt and hindsight is always 20/20. Every administration has made mistakes. (Current one seems to be going for the record.) As long as its an honest portrayal I have no problem with it. I see no need for ABC to post President Clintons resume or any info unrelated to the movie. They say they were not trying to make a political biased movie and mention the mistakes made by President Clinton and Bush. I am good with that. Its time for serious reflection as a whole.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I am sure they are more then aware.

Did President Clinton make mistakes? Sure, who doesnt and hindsight is always 20/20. Every administration has made mistakes. (Current one seems to be going for the record.) As long as its an honest portrayal I have no problem with it. I see no need for ABC to post President Clintons resume or any info unrelated to the movie. They say they were not trying to make a political biased movie and mention the mistakes made by President Clinton and Bush. I am good with that. Its time for serious reflection as a whole.

Just curious, did you read the article I linked? Here is more from that article:



The Clinton administration poured more than a billion dollars into counterterrorism activities across the entire spectrum of the intelligence community, into the protection of critical infrastructure, into massive federal stockpiling of antidotes and vaccines to prepare for a possible bioterror attack, into a reorganization of the intelligence community itself. Within the National Security Council, "threat meetings" were held three times a week to assess looming conspiracies. His National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, prepared a voluminous dossier on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, actively tracking them across the planet. Clinton raised the issue of terrorism in virtually every important speech he gave in the last three years of his tenure.

Clinton's dire public warnings about the threat posed by terrorism, and the actions taken to thwart it, went completely unreported by the media, which was far more concerned with stained dresses and baseless Drudge Report rumors. When the administration did act militarily against bin Laden and his terrorist network, the actions were dismissed by partisans within the media and Congress as scandalous "wag the dog" tactics. The news networks actually broadcast clips of the movie "Wag the Dog" while reporting on his warnings, to accentuate the idea that everything the administration said was contrived fakery.

In Congress, Clinton was thwarted by the reactionary conservative majority in virtually every attempt he made to pass legislation that would attack al-Qaeda and terrorism. His 1996 omnibus terror bill, which included many of the anti-terror measures we now take for granted after September 11, was withered almost to the point of uselessness by attacks from the right; Senators Jesse Helms and Trent Lott were openly dismissive of the threats Clinton spoke of.

Specifically, Clinton wanted to attack the financial underpinnings of the al-Qaeda network by banning American companies and individuals from dealing with foreign banks and financial institutions that al-Qaeda was using for its money-laundering operations. Texas Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, gutted the portions of Clinton's bill dealing with this matter, calling them "totalitarian."

In fact, Gramm was compelled to kill the bill because his most devoted patrons, the Enron Corporation and its criminal executives in Houston, were using those same terrorist financial networks to launder their own dirty money and rip off the Enron stockholders. It should also be noted that Gramm's wife, Wendy, sat on the Enron Board of Directors.

Just before departing office, Clinton managed to make a deal with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to have some twenty nations close tax havens used by al-Qaeda. His term ended before the deal was sealed, and the incoming Bush administration acted immediately to destroy the agreement.

According to Time magazine, in an article entitled "Banking on Secrecy" published in October of 2001, Bush economic advisors Larry Lindsey and R. Glenn Hubbard were urged by think tanks like the Center for Freedom and Prosperity to opt out of the coalition Clinton had formed. The conservative Heritage Foundation lobbied Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, to do the same.

In the end, the lobbyists got what they wanted, and the Bush administration pulled out of the plan. The Time article stated, "Without the world's financial superpower, the biggest effort in years to rid the world's financial system of dirty money was short-circuited."

ABC's miniseries skates right over this, and likewise refuses to address the myriad ways in which the Bush administration failed completely to defend this nation from attack. All the efforts put forth by the Clinton administration were cast aside when Bush took office, simply because they wanted nothing to do with the outgoing government. Condoleezza Rice, by her own admission, did not even bother to look at the massive compendium of al-Qaeda data compiled by Sandy Berger until the morning of September 11.

After the attacks, virtually every member of the Bush administration put forth the talking point that, "No one could have anticipated anyone using airplanes as bombs." The facts tell a different story.

In 1993, a $150,000 study was undertaken by the Pentagon to investigate the possibility of airplanes being used as bombs. A draft document of this was circulated throughout the Pentagon, the Justice Department, and to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In 1994, a disgruntled Federal Express employee invaded the cockpit of a DC10 with the intention of crashing it into a company building. Again in 1994, a pilot crashed a small airplane into a tree on the White House grounds, narrowly missing the building itself. Also in 1994, an Air France flight was hijacked by members of a terrorist organization called the Armed Islamic Group, who intended to crash the plane into the Eiffel Tower.


Please go here for the rest of the piece: [Only registered and activated users can see links]

I'm not a big fan of censorship either, but I'm even more inclined to have disdain for out and out disinformation. Aren't you?

[galilei]

Thank you, Koy for keeping us informed.

My letter:
It has come to my attention that the ABC network will be airing a propaganda hit piece entitled "The Path to 9/11".
I am suddenly reminded of the Sinclair network during the 2004 election season.
If you think that you can rewrite history to the advantage of a fascist movement within this country and not face serious backlash and opposition, you are completely deluded.
The American people will not tolerate the SWIFTBOATING of 9/11.
Expect my opposition for life if you choose this path to fascism

... using exactly the 500 characters allowed for comment. :)

[SouthernDem2006]

Just curious, did you read the article I linked? Here is more from that article:



Please go here for the rest of the piece: [Only registered and activated users can see links]

I'm not a big fan of censorship either, but I'm even more inclined to have disdain for out and out disinformation. Aren't you?

Yes, I read the article. Clearly Pitt wants to make it a politically onesidedmovie.

The movie is about a specific event and not the entire war on terrorism. It is a docudrama about the events leading to 9/11. Mr. Pitts facts are not relevant.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Yes, I read the article. Clearly Pitt wants to make it a politically onesidedmovie.

The movie is about a specific event and not the entire war on terrorism.


Above statement is irrelevent.



It is a docudrama about the events leading to 9/11.

From one of your links, SD:

"It seems that people keep referring to this movie as a "documentary". A documentary is a journalistic format that gives facts and information through interviews and news footage. This is a movie or more specifically a docudrama. Meaning, it is a narrative movie based on facts and dramatized with actors."


Mr. Pitts facts are not relevant.

We'll have to agree to disagree on your statement above. If you were Clinton, would you feel these facts are irrelevant in this matter?

[SouthernDem2006]

Above statement is irrelevent.



From one of your links, SD:

"It seems that people keep referring to this movie as a "documentary". A documentary is a journalistic format that gives facts and information through interviews and news footage. This is a movie or more specifically a docudrama. Meaning, it is a narrative movie based on facts and dramatized with actors."



We'll have to agree to disagree on this. If you were Clinton, would you feel these facts are irrelevant in this matter?


Yes. They have nothing to do with 9/11.

Fact: President Clinton had the chance to capture/kill OBL.
Fact: President Clinton do not capture/kill OBL.
As long as they mention why he decided not to take action at the time, I am good with it.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Yes. They have nothing to do with 9/11.

Fact: President Clinton had the chance to capture/kill OBL.
Fact: President Clinton do not capture/kill OBL.
As long as they mention why he decided not to take action at the time, I am good with it.

Then by your own definition of this matter, the fact that President Clinton was unable to capture/kill OBL is irrelevent and should not be included in this film about 9/11. This due to all the other facts about Clinton mentioned in Will Pitt's piece. It is not proper to mention your facts without mentioning the other facts Will Pitt mentions. I think you would agree if you were the one in the hot seat. ;)

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Remember, SD, it has not been proven OBL had anything to do with 9/11. He is not listed on the FBI's most wanted list for the crimes of 9/11. The reason for this, according to the FBI itself, is because they lack sufficient evidence OBL was involved.

[Only registered and activated users can see links]

[Eyeswideopen]

Koy, thanks so much. You certainly know your stuff.

I just hope they will mention the alleged meeting in the Dubai hospital between Bin Ladin and a CIA agent in July, 2001. Somehow I doubt that juicy morsel will be included in ABC's portrayal. What was that all about? Maybe they were discussing if Bin Ladin had finished filming his first video about 9/11 yet or perhaps they were working out the logistics of to whom he was to deliver his subsequent tapes and when, for maximum effect.

And as Koy reminds us, Bin Ladin is not evidentially tied to the 9/11 attacks sufficiently for the FBI to list that as one of his crimes. Of course, I guess everyone, who doesn't know that, is "good with it". For the rest of us, this endless propagandizing regarding the mystical cave dweller and his suicidal disciples is getting a bit tiresome. Let's see if ABC's "story" reveals that FBI Director Mueller admitted they don't know who flew those planes into the buildings, after it was discovered that some were still alive. I kind of doubt that will be included in the presentation either. Wanna bet?

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Koy, thanks so much. You certainly know your stuff.

I just hope they will mention the alleged meeting in the Dubai hospital between Bin Ladin and a CIA agent in July, 2001. Somehow I doubt that juicy morsel will be included in ABC's portrayal. What was that all about? Maybe they were discussing if Bin Ladin had finished filming his first video about 9/11 yet or perhaps they were working out the logistics of to whom he was to deliver his subsequent tapes and when, for maximum effect.

And as Koy reminds us, Bin Ladin is not evidentially tied to the 9/11 attacks sufficiently for the FBI to list that as one of his crimes. Of course, I guess everyone, who doesn't know that, is "good with it". For the rest of us, this endless propagandizing regarding the mystical cave dweller and his suicidal disciples is getting a bit tiresome. Let's see if ABC's "story" reveals that FBI Director Mueller admitted they don't know who flew those planes into the buildings, after it was discovered that some were still alive. I kind of doubt that will be included in the presentation either. Wanna bet?

Thanks Eyes! Great points. In fact, if anybody would like to see the footage of FBI Director Mueller admitting they don't know who flew those planed into the buildings, just watch the first couple of minutes of this film:

Link: [Only registered and activated users can see links]

Since ABC seems to be claiming their mini-series is a "dramatization" of a historical view of what lead up to 9/11, I would recommend this very good, documented film about the history of state sponsored terroism, "Terror Storm", as a followup:

Link: [Only registered and activated users can see links]

Remember, 9/11 happened on Bush's watch with Clinton providing all the warnings about terrorisim to the Bush admin before Clinton left office. Clinton had NOTHING to do with 9/11.

Also, during the same time slot as ABC's program on Sunday, will be aired Discovery Channel's "Koppel: The Price of Security".

Link: [Only registered and activated users can see links]

From the link:


Ted Koppel explores the tension between the need to provide security and the need to protect individual liberties in a 90-minute documentary entitled "The Price of Security." A live town hall meeting at Discovery Headquarters in Silver Spring, MD


No idea if this program will be a good watch or not, just noticed it advertised in the same time slot.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Oh SNAP! I hope everyone will forgive me linking to a post on DU by user, Reprehensor (:bowdown[1]: ), in response to Will Pitts article (I linked at the beginning of this thread):

"The passage of time will, in all likelihood, finally expose the truth behind exactly what happened on September 11, and why. Until the moment of final revelation comes, however, we are all best served by a systematic analysis of the facts surrounding that dark day."

- William Rivers Pitt, "Clinton, 9/11 and the Facts" ([Only registered and activated users can see links])


Mr. Pitt, I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, that's exactly what so many of us have been screaming for -- for 5 years now. A systematic analysis of the facts.

(This September will see the release of the documentary "9/11: Press for Truth," ([Only registered and activated users can see links]) across America, highlighting the consistently uphill battle of the Jersey Girls, and the careful research of DU'er Paul Thompson. ([Only registered and activated users can see links])

This documentary will undoubtedly offer some satisfaction to independent 9/11 researchers, a kind of, "I told you so," revelry. And, hopefully, a corrective to the lobotomized approach to 9/11 skepticism lopsidedly administered by media pundits of all political shades for the past 5 nasty, brutish years.)

You may ask, "Why is it so easy for a media giant like ABC to allow for a partisan cudgel ([Only registered and activated users can see links]) to be so finely crafted within the folds of its cloak?"

Let's also ask this musical question: "Why has the Democratic Party practically en masse allowed Neoconservatives to establish a stance from which to launch a campaign of this nature?"

To answer these questions in any substantive form will require a short walk down memory lane to examine the ideological roots of "international terrorism".

Much more here: [Only registered and activated users can see links]


(FYI - Will Pitts own comment to this piece:
#17. God damn. Great stuff. Thanks for putting the work in. This is excellent.)
:happy0122[1]:

My thoughts? To sum up, pinning 9/11 on Clinton is misleading at best.

[Christine]

The Hart-Rudman Report was ignored...at our expense!
A Year after 9/11, America Still Unprepared for a Terrorist Attack, Warns New Hart-Rudman Task Force on Homeland Security

October 24, 2002
Council on Foreign Relations

Full text and executive summary:
"America— Still Unprepared, Still in Danger,"
An Independent Task Force
Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations

Click here to view
the original Hart-Rudman Report

[Only registered and activated users can see links]

Senate Testimony of Stephen Flynn

[Only registered and activated users can see links]

October 25, 2002 – A year after 9/11, America remains dangerously unprepared to prevent and respond to a catastrophic attack on U.S. soil, concludes a blue-ribbon panel led by former Senators Warren Rudman and Gary Hart—co-chairs of the now famous Commission on National Security that warned of such a terrorist attack three years ago.

The Independent Task Force, which came to this sober conclusion and which makes recommendations for emergency action, included two former secretaries of state, three Nobel laureates, two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former director of the CIA and FBI, and some of the nation’s most distinguished financial, legal, and medical experts. One of the country’s leading authorities on homeland security, Council Senior Fellow Stephen Flynn, directed the Task Force.

If the nation does not respond more urgently to address its vulnerabilities, the Task Force warns, the next attack could result in even greater casualties and widespread disruption to our lives and economy.

The critical need to make specific preparatory acts is made even more imperative by the prospect that the United States might go to war with Iraq and that Saddam Hussein might threaten the use of weapons of mass destruction in America.

The Task Force credits the Bush administration, Congress, governors and mayors for taking important measures since 9/11 to respond to the risk of catastrophic terrorism, and does not seek to apportion blame about what has not been done or not done quickly enough. The report is aimed, rather, at closing the gap between our intelligence estimates and analysis—which acknowledge immediate danger on the one hand—and our capacity to prevent, mitigate and respond to these attacks on the other.

Among the risks that still confront the United States:

* 650,000 local and state police officials continue to operate in a virtual intelligence vacuum including having no access to terrorist watch lists provided by the U.S. Department of State to immigration and consular officials.
* While 50,000 federal screeners are being hired at the nation’s airports to check passengers, only the tiniest percentage of containers, ships, trucks, and trains that enter the United States each day are subject to examination—and a weapon of mass destruction could well be hidden among this cargo.
* First responders—police, fire, emergency medical personnel—are not ready to respond to a chemical or biological attack. Their radios can’t talk with one another and they lack the training and protective gear to protect themselves and the public in an emergency. The consequence of this could be the unnecessary loss of thousands of American lives.
* An adversary intent on disrupting America’s reliance on energy need not target oilfields in the Middle East. The homeland infrastructure for refining and distributing energy to support our daily lives remains largely unprotected to sabotage.
* Our own ill-prepared response has the capacity to hurt us to a much greater extent than any single attack by a terrorist. America is a powerful and resilient nation and terrorists are not supermen. But the risk of self-inflicted harm to our liberties and way of life is greatest during and immediately following a national trauma.

To deal with these and other weaknesses, the Task Force makes a number of recommendations for emergency action, including the following:

* Make first responders ready to respond by immediately providing federal funds to clear the backlog of requests for protective gear, training, and communications equipment. State and local budgets cannot bankroll these necessities in the near term.
* Recalibrate the agenda for transportation security; the vulnerabilities are greater and the stakes are higher in the sea and land modes than in commercial aviation.
* Strengthen the capacity of local, state, and federal public heath and agricultural agencies to detect and conduct disease outbreak investigations. The key to mitigating casualties associated with a biological attack against people or the food supply is to identify the source of infection as early as possible.
* Empower front line agents to intercept terrorists by establishing 24-hour operations centers in each state that can provide access to terrorist watch list information via real time intergovernmental links between local and federal law enforcement
* Fund, equip, and train National Guard units around the country to ensure they can support the new state homeland security plans under development by each Governor. Also, triple the number of National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction Support Teams from 22 to 66.

TASK FORCE MEMBERS

CHARLES G. BOYD
Chief Executive Officer and President,
Business Executives for National Security
Former Deputy Commander in Chief, U.S. European Command

WARREN CHRISTOPHER
Senior Partner at O’Melveny & Myers
Former Secretary of State

WILLIAM J. CROWE
Senior Adviser, Global Options
Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

STEPHEN E. FLYNN (DIRECTOR)
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security
Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
Former Commander, United States Coast Guard

STEPHEN FRIEDMAN
Senior Principal, Marsh & McLennan Capital
Former Chairman, Goldman, Sachs & Company

GARY HART (CO-CHAIR)
Of Counsel, Coudert Brothers
Former Senator (D-CO)

JAMES K. KALLSTROM
Senior Executive Vice President, MBNA Bank
Former Director, Office of Public Security for the State of New York.
Assistant Director in Charge, New York Federal Bureau
Investigation Division

JOSHUA LEDERBERG
President-Emeritus and Sackler Foundation Scholar,
Rockefeller University
Nobel Laureate

DONALD B. MARRON
Chairman, UBS America
Managing General Partner of Lightyear Capital
Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Paine Webber Group Inc.

PHILIP A. ODEEN
Chairman, TRW Inc.
Former President of BDM International, Inc.

WARREN B. RUDMAN (CO-CHAIR)
Partner, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison
Former Senator (R-NH)

GEORGE P. SHULTZ
Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow,
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Former Secretary of State
Former Secretary of the Treasury
Former Secretary of Labor
Former Director, Office of Management and Budget

ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER
Dean, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Former J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International,
Foreign and Comparative Law, Harvard Law School

HAROLD E. VARMUS
President and Chief Executive Officer, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Former Director, National Institutes of Health
Nobel Laureate

JOHN W. VESSEY
Chairman, Center for Preventive Action, Council on Foreign Relations
Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

WILLIAM H. WEBSTER
Partner, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy
Former Director, Central Intelligence
Former Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation

STEVEN WEINBERG
Director of the Theory Group, University of Texas
Nobel Laureate