Kean Says 9-11 Panel Wants to Release At Least Four More Reports, With Classified Documents
Sun Jul 25 2004 10:16:28 ET
New York –Tom Kean, chairman of the 9/11 panel, tells TIME the panel hopes to release at least four more staff-written reports, some of which contain classified documents, on such topics as aviation and border security and terrorist financing. “Interested parties may have to sue the government” to see them, according to TIME.
U.S. officials tell TIME that reports from agents and “code talk” picked up from extremists’ e-mail point to a possible al-Qaeda attack before the Nov. 2 election. Says a CIA official, “We have some fairly specific information that al-Qaeda wants to come after us.”
Kean reiterated the sense of foreboding: “An attack of even greater magnitude is possible and even probable,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of TIME.”
TIME also reports President Bush has asked Chief of Staff Andrew Card to head a working group to look at how best to assess and implement 9/11 Commission Report recommendations. After Democratic challenger John Kerry announced he would appoint a new cabinet-level National Intelligence Director (NID) “when I’m President,” Bush aides hinted the President too may back the idea of a new intelligence czar. “Nothing ‘s off the table,” a senior White House official tells TIME. “And it’s definitely not off the table before the election.”
“While the advent of an NID would recast the intelligence community’s pecking order, it could also make things worse,” writes TIME World editor Romesh Ratnesar. Says John Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense on the Clinton Administration, “If you have one guy for whom everyone works, then you’re going to start getting a homogenous view.”
Ratnesar adds, “the 9/11 panel offers few specific suggestions for how the U.S. and its allies can improve in the most critical area of all: getting actionable human intelligence on al-Qaeda and its attack plans by infiltrating terrorist networks.” Says Hamre: “All these reorganizing efforts are kind of rearranging the boxes of the people that supply intelligence, when we really need to be talking about how we demand better-quality intelligence across the board.”
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