WASHINGTON – The Sept. 11 commission’s final report concludes the hijackers exploited “deep institutional failings within our government” over a long period, administration officials familiar with the findings said Wednesday.
The report describes the patience and determination of the 19 hijackers and said they probed for weaknesses in airline and border procedures, taking test flights to gauge security.
The Sept. 11 commission has spent 20 months looking into how the hijackers were able to mount the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, killing nearly 3,000 people and demolishing the World Trade Center’s twin towers.
White House officials and congressional leaders were briefed Wednesday on the panel’s findings, and Bush is to receive a copy of the 575-page report today, just before it is released to the public.
“It does not place blame on particular individuals or particular incidents, but in fact it identifies institutional failings that have grown up over time about the way our government is organized,” one official said.
It concludes that Bush and Clinton took the threat of al-Qaida seriously and were “genuinely concerned about the danger posed by al-Qaida,” the official said. It finds that neither president was to blame for failing to stop the attacks, which were the culmination of years of planning.
As expected, the report will call for creating a Cabinet-level national director of intelligence with authority over the CIA, FBI and other agencies. The White House administration is reserving judgment on that recommendation, and officials doubt it could be approved by Congress this year.
The report lists a series of missed operational opportunities to stop the hijackers, such as the bungled attempts to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and the FBI’s handling of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested in August 2001 before the hijackings and has been accused of conspiring in the plot, the official said.
It also “debunks” some theories that once circulated widely, such as that the Saudi government had funded the hijackers and that the White House allowed a group of Saudis to slip out of the country when all planes were grounded, the official said.
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