Progress too slow, say 9/11 panelists

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...ay911panelists

By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY Wed Apr 27, 6:53 AM ET

(Gold9472: They Should Be Locked Up)

Congress and President Bush aren't moving fast enough to protect the nation from terrorist attacks, the leaders of the commission that investigated 9/11 said Tuesday.

Former commission chairman Thomas Kean and co-chairman Lee Hamilton said they are planning a half-dozen hearings in June and July to assess the government's progress in responding to the commission's 567-page report, released last summer. Commission members will issue a "report card" in July.

Kean and Hamilton told reporters and editors at USA TODAY that important recommendations from the report haven't been addressed. Among them are improved efforts to spread American values in the Muslim world and appointing a civil liberties board to monitor the nation's intelligence and security policies.

"We know many of these recommendations are going to be implemented," Kean said. "The question is whether they're going to be implemented before the next attack or after it."

Kean, a Republican former governor of New Jersey, said he is "very, very happy" that Congress and the White House created a national intelligence director post, and he praised the confirmation of former United Nations ambassador John Negroponte to the job.

But he and Hamilton, a Democratic former congressman from Indiana, said Washington has fallen far short in other important areas. Among them:

• Reorganizing Congress to better oversee intelligence and homeland security agencies. Intelligence committees still have no real power because they don't control those agencies' budgets.

• Promoting American values in the Muslim world. Bush recently appointed his longtime adviser Karen Hughes to lead the effort at the State Department, but she's not starting work until the fall.

Kean said the United States is perceived in the Middle East as a military enforcer. "We cannot continue to be the man in the tank - and that's our image in the Arab world," Kean said.

• Making more radio frequencies available so that police, firefighters and other responders will be able to talk to each other during emergencies. Efforts to do so have been bottled up in Congress.

• Appointing a civil liberties board. White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said officials are "actively working to fill the positions" on the board.

For this summer's hearings, Kean and Hamilton won't have the authority to subpoena witnesses, as they did during their 20-month investigation. But they hope to generate enough publicity to pressure members of Congress and the White House to act.