September 11 families say Rice testimony fails to answer all questions
Thu Apr 8, 5:10 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Relatives of September 11 attacks victims said testimony given by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) to an official commission failed to fully explain why the United States was caught off guard by al-Qaeda.
"I think she really danced around the issues," said Mary Fetchet, whose son Bradley, 24, perished when terrorists flew a jetliner into the second World Trade Center tower on September 11, 2001.
"She gave very vague responses. Questions that she didn't want to answer, she didn't answer," said Fetchet.
She said she had hoped Rice would follow the example of former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, who in testimony to the commission two weeks ago apologized to the families for the government's failure to prevent the attacks.
"She doesn't accept that she did not make good decisions, that she as national security adviser did not do what she was supposed to do," said Fetchet, who said her son might be alive today if the government had heeded the clues about an impending terror strike.
"Any mother will tell you, you need to learn from your mistakes so that you don't make them again. Unless people are ... honest about what the failures were and take some accountability for those failures, what are we really going to resolve?" she asked.
Some relatives felt however, that mea culpas were not called for.
"I think an apology would be inappropriate," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles was the pilot of the plane that rammed the Pentagon (news - web sites).
"It wouldn't have mattered who was in the Oval Office on September 11. Nothing they could have done could have prevented my brother's murder and the murder of 3,000 other people," she said.
"We had breakdowns in our intelligence agencies, we had breakdowns with the FBI (news - web sites), we had legal barriers that prevented them from sharing information -- she explained all that," she said.
The biggest lesson from 9/11, Burlingame continued, was that "we have new enemies. We have to look ahead. We know now that there are individuals with laptops and cell phones and an overriding desire to kill Americans."
Hers appeared to be a minority view among family members however. Beverly Eckert, who lost her husband Sean Rooney in the World Trade Center attack, said she feared Americans were no safer today than before 9/11, especially since the US-led war on Iraq (news - web sites).
"The war in Iraq diverted resources. Honestly I don't know that we're stopping terrorism by agitating that segment of the world," she said. "I don't think we're safer from terrorism. I think we're less safe."
Rosemary Dillard said she felt the "utmost respect" for Rice's grace under fire on the witness stand, but was unconvinced by the testimony, saying much of what Rice -- one of President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s most trusted aides -- had to offer was "spin."
"She would go on and on, and by the time she finished nobody knew what the original question was."
"She appears to be a very good person. She also appears to be the person who's going to protect her boss," said Dillard, whose husband Eddie was a passenger on the airliner that slammed into the Pentagon.
"I think our government owes us some answers," Dillard said. "We need to know that I can get on an airplane and not have this happen, or I can get on a train. I need to know that the government agencies that are supposed to protect us, protect us."
Helga Gerhardt and her husband Hans, originally from Germany, said they had been frustrated that the information flow was slow, but, after attending the hearings, said they are piecing together the events which took the life of their son Ralph at the World Trade Center.
"I'm getting more answers over time," said Gerhardt, who has lived for nearly four decades in Canada.
"For us it's more important now to find out why this happened. When we saw it on television, we knew immediately that this was a terrorist attack. Why did it take so long to mobilize to protect the sites?"
Despite having attended hours of commission hearings, she said, "I'm still not 100 percent sure I understand."
news.yahoo.com |
