9/11 Commission Hearings:First hearing transcript

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OPENING REMARKS

Main article: 9/11 Commission Hearings:First hearing transcript Opening Remarks

The Experience of the Attack

I now ask the panel of Mr. Waizer, David Lim, Lee Ielpi, Brian Birdwell and Craig Sincock, please.

All right. Are we ready to get started again? We are running behind, which I apologize for. We did not expect the Commissioners from New York but thought it was wrong, since they made themselves available, they are an important part of this, and I thought it was wrong not to ask them questions when they offered to accept questions.

Waizer

pt 1

Mr. Waizer, do you want to start in?

MR. WAIZER: Governor Kean, members of the Commission, thank you for asking me to speak before you today. My experience of 9/11 differs from yours and that of the general public. As this nation and much of the world watched in shock and horror on 9/11, as events unfolded at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon and in the air over the farmlands of Pennsylvania, I was otherwise engaged, battling for my life. If hearing my personal story can help this Commission fulfill its important task, I will gladly tell it.

On September 11th, at approximately 8:46 in the morning, I was in an elevator, somewhere between the 78th and 101st floor, in Tower 1 of the World Trade Center. I had left my wife, Karen, and our three children, Katie then age 13, Joshua 12, and Jodi 10, at about 7:15 that morning and I was on my way to my offices on the 104th floor where I was employed as Vice President and Tax Counsel in charge of national and international tax matters for Cantor Fitzgerald.

The elevator was ascending when, suddenly, I felt it rocked by an explosion, and then felt it plummeting. Orange, streaming sparks were apparent through the gaps in the doors at the sides of the elevator as the elevator scraped the walls of the shaft. The elevator burst into flame. I began to beat at the flames, burning my hands, arms and legs in the process. The flames went out, but I was hit in the face and neck by a separate fireball that came through the gap in the side of the elevator doors. The elevator came to a stop on the 78th floor, the doors opened, and I jumped out.

I began the long walk down 78 flights in the fire stairwell. I walked, focused on my single mission: to get to the streets and find an ambulance. I knew I was seriously hurt. The stairwell was filled with people calmly walking down, with no apparent sense of the magnitude of what had just occurred. I was shouting out to people in the stairwell, telling them I was burned, asking them to step aside so that I could get down more quickly. Faces turned towards me, sometimes with apparent annoyance at this intrusion on the orderly evacuation process. I saw the look on many of those faces turn to sympathy or horror as they saw me. At one point I noticed a large flap of skin hanging on my arm. I did not look any further.

Somewhere on the way down, I believe around the 50th floor, I met a man who appeared to be either a firefighter or Emergency Medical Technician walking up. He stopped, turned around, and walked in front of me, leading me down. We made it to the lobby and walked two blocks to find an empty ambulance, which took me to the Burn Center at New York Presbyterian Hospital. I stayed conscious only long enough to give them my name and my wife's phone number.

I have no memories after that for some six or seven weeks; I spent that period in a state of induced coma, but I can offer a secondhand account of some of the more important personal events. I was triaged at the hospital, where they took my clothes, wallet, watch and glasses, none of which I ever saw again. They began to cut off my wedding band from my badly burned fingers, but a sympathetic nurse used an entire jar of lubricant to remove it intact and saved it for my wife. Karen has worn that ring on a chain around her neck since then, saving it for the day when I can wear it on my finger again.

As the world watched with horror as the events of that morning unfolded, Karen began receiving phone calls from friends and relatives. She tried to call me and waited, with fading hope, for me to call her. Friends and family gathered at my home to offer hope and, if the worst happened, comfort. My two older children, having heard of the attack called home and were allowed to return home. My 10 year old daughter remained in school, unaware. At 12:30 the nurse was finally able to call Karen, who took the call in our kitchen and passed the news on to the others that I was alive. Screams and tears of joy filled that room. But as one nightmare ended for her, another was to begin.

pt 2

Karen had no idea how seriously I had been injured. She was unable to reach me at the hospital until almost 8 o'clock that evening]. When Karen first saw me that night, I was not recognizable. My head was swollen almost basketball size, the rest of my body had similarly swelled and my features were either covered by bandages or so blackened and distorted as to be unidentifiable. It was only the ring that gave her any comfort that the swollen, misshapen body lying in that hospital bed was in fact her husband.

The doctors explained to Karen the nature and severity of my injuries. I was particularly at risk because the fireball in my face had seared my windpipe and lungs and I had inhaled a large amount of jet fuel, leaving me particularly prone to life-threatening infections. I have since been told that my chances of survival at that moment were roughly five percent.

That night began a seven-week roller-coaster ride for Karen, friends and family. I would appear to be recovering one day and be diagnosed with a highly dangerous infection the next. I underwent multiple surgeries to graft new skin on my hands, arms, face and neck, suffered a blood clot, a seizure, a partial lung collapse and a series of blood and lung infections.

Karen's mother moved up from Delaware into our home to take care of our three children. Members of our local and our synagogue communities delivered dinner to our home and drove our children to their various activities. Friends and family accompanied Karen to the hospital every day. Mine was not just a personal struggle, it was shared by family and community.

After five months of hospitalization, multiple surgeries, a year and a half, and counting, of painful, sometimes grueling, therapy, I am here today to bear witness. My injuries have left me with lung damage, chronic pain in my right elbow, my left knee, my back, damage to my vocal cords and the prognosis for the nerve and tendon damage in my hands is still uncertain. But I can enjoy various activities, play with my children, and enjoy my time spent with my wife, with my friends and family.

I am one of the handful of lucky ones. Just blocks away from here lay the unrecovered remains of many friends and colleagues, some dear friends. They can no longer speak for themselves and I am left with the unchosen, unhappy task of trying to speak for them. I do this with no particular moral authority, but neither I nor they have a choice.

I have no rage about what happened on 9/11, only a deep sadness for the many innocent, worthy lives lost and the loved ones who lost so much that day. There have always been madmen, perhaps there always will be. They must be stopped, but with the cold detachment reserved by a surgeon for removing a cancer. They are not worthy of my rage. Neither do I feel anger at those who arguably could have foreseen, and thereby prevented, the tragedies. If there were mistakes, they were the mistakes of complacency, a complacency in which we all shared.

This Commission cannot turn back the hands of time. There's nothing to be gained by asserting blame, by pointing fingers. The dead will remain dead despite this Commission's best efforts and intentions. But it is my hope that this Commission can learn and teach us from its scrutiny of the past, and if the findings of this Commission can prevent even one future 9/11, if they can forestall even one plan of Osama bin Laden, prevent even one more act of madness and horror, I and the rest of this nation will owe the Commission our gratitude, and I will be proud of the small part I was allowed to play today.

I do have one concern I would like to voice. I have no political experience, but I do have experience as an informed citizen. It tells me that commissions such as this are usually formed by men and women of good will, have committed, intelligent members and staff possessed of good will, and eventually produce reports that are read carefully and seriously by others of good will. Yet the findings of such commissions are often ignored in the end. Compassion and concern are often spread thin, and other important issues become priorities after the glare of the public spotlight fades.

My fear is that the work of this Commission will have a similar fate. My hope is that by speaking to you today, by putting a human face on the tragedy that was 9/11, by attempting to speak, however inadequately, for those who no longer have voices, I can help further the cause of this Commission and this nation, to help build a safer, more secure tomorrow for all of us, and that doing so will help bring peace for us and our children. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Mr. Waizer, thank you for your eloquence, sir. Mr. David Lim, of the Port Authority .

Lim

MR. LIM: I would first like to say, that was one of the most moving statements I have ever heard. And it makes what I have to say, I guess, pale in comparison.

I would like to thank the Commission, Governor Kean, for allowing me to speak before you today in regards to my personal experience on 9/11. As Mr. Waizer said, if what I can tell you will help you in any way, find a cause to prevent future happening of events such as this, speaking from a police officer's point of view, will be greatly appreciated.

I saw, I saw a great number of my brethren, 37 Port Authority police officers were killed that day. Port Authority police only had 1,100 police officers at that time. And therein lies my responsibility, the same as Mr. Waizer's, I have to speak now for those who can no longer speak.

I guess that's where it lies heaviest for me. These men and women, like myself, were just doing our jobs that day, something we do every day. And only recently, I guess, it's appreciated, unfortunately, through our great loss.

Someone asked why the Port Authority police were in the World Trade Center, with the exception of Governor Kean, of course. The Port Authority police are in the World Trade Center because the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey built the World Trade Center. They built it back in the '70s and from the first time they dug the first hole, there was a Port Authority police officer present to provide security for that area.

When I first became a police officer, that was back in 1980, I'll be perfectly honest, I didn't know a lot of Port Authority police. I wanted to be a police officer. I wanted to serve the public. So I learned.

I learned that the Port Authority police were responsible for most of the public-transportation facilities in the bi-state area, which of course includes tunnels, bridges, airports, areas which obviously need security but post-9/11 have now become the most highlighted areas in this area, in this theater of terrorism. But I digress.

I wanted to say a lot of things today about the Port Authority, but I think, I guess, I said enough about that. And I'm going to tell you about what happened to me that day. When I tell you this, I want you to remember what I tell you is not the story of just David Lim, it's the story of every police officer, firefighter, EMS, civilians that were helping out that day.

As the governor, Governor Pataki, said to you earlier, it was a day that we all came together. We, everybody, pulled together to help every else. You will understand that as I tell my story.

I myself have been a Port Authority police officer for 23 years, the greater part of that at the World Trade Center Command until I got into the Canine Unit and have been doing that for the last six years. And that's where my story begins.

I was working on 9/11, like I do every day, with my partner, Sirius, my explosive-detector canine, checking trucks coming into the World Trade Center. This was considered vital, considering what happened in '93. We did this every day with a great feeling that we were accomplishing a very necessary job.

The Trade Center itself, I can speak to the security. We had delta barriers and all kinds of security situations set up to prevent future terrorist attacks after '93. On that day I had just finished up searching a multitude of trucks with my partner and I had retired to my office to do my paperwork and have a little breakfast.

8:45 a.m. all that changed. I was in the basement of Number 2 World Trade Center, yet I felt the shock of the first plane hitting Tower 1. And that could give you at least a start of the idea of the power of that hit, if I was in the basement of the other building. I secured my partner in his kennel, told him that I had to go help the people -- he was a bomb dog, not a search-and-rescue dog -- and I figured he'd be safe there while I went to assist. Unfortunately, that was the last time I saw him.

I went over to Tower Number 1 to the mezzanine level by the plaza by the sound stage where they would have summertime shows. I was assisting people out of the A staircase as they were coming out of the building. At this point the debris was already falling onto the plaza. Somebody screamed that a body was outside on the plaza. I went over to investigate. And sure enough, was the first body that I had seen.

It's not something that I'm going to describe here, there's no point. It's just something that I will never forget for the rest of my life. Here, as a police officer, at that point I guess 21-and-a-half-years, was what I thought was the most important thing, I had a body, a DOA. I had a lot of procedures to follow. And I went to call it in on the radio.

And just as I did that, another body fell about 10 feet away from that one. And all of a sudden, what I thought was the most important thing to take care of, this body, became inconsequential in the fact that obviously things were going to get a lot worse than this one body that I had seen.

I took it upon myself at that point to start heading up into the building to assist before people would start jumping out of the building. I started going up the stairs and I saw a lot of frightened faces. People were asking me what was going on. At that point I already heard about the airplane, but I lowered my radio to prevent people from getting too scared.

I kept on going up, telling people to keep going down, down is good. I remember running into people similar to Mr. Waizer that were burned, asking for help. What I did was I assigned those people to people that were healthy to help get them down. I felt the greater good was for me to get to a higher point to try to assist those people upstairs.

I got to the 27th floor and I saw a man in a wheelchair waiting with his friend. I remember this because it's very important. I went up to him and he said he was waiting for the crowd to clear and then he would go down. Coming up another staircase, the B staircase, was the Fire Department who said that they would take care of the gentleman and that if I wanted, to proceed up.

Well, I tell you, I went into the staircase that they came out of and, as you'll hear, it was very important. As I went to that staircase, there were more people coming down. There were some clogs of people, but generally they were calm and they were not too frightened. At this point it was still rather early, but they were going down orderly.

I got up to the 44th floor, Tower 1, the sky lobby. I had made that my goal based on the fact that there are express elevators that are situated on that floor. My fear was that people coming from the middle floors would get onto those elevators and try to take the quicker way down.

I have learned from my training in ESU that an elevator is probably not one of the better places to be. And I apologize for that, you know, it's just you didn't know, obviously, you know, at the time. I'm talking about post-emergency.

And sure enough, just as I was starting to get the people down, I felt another collision on the left side. Looking out the window I saw this rain of fire coming down and it blew out the windows on the 44th floor. Fortunately, I was right in the middle, I was not burned, but I was knocked to the ground by the concussion. I grabbed whatever people I had left.

And at this point, as you say, I knew we were under attack. I thought it was an accident, there was no reason to think otherwise at that point. A horrible accident, something we actually had trained for, I remember, in the '80s in case something like that would happen. But as I started going down and taking the people with me, I could see the fear in their eyes growing.

The building now was starting to shake and was not the stablest, you know, in other words, it was not very stable. I'll just leave it at that. As we were going down, I was clearing the floors, getting people that were left behind that were waiting. Most of them were either handicapped, elderly, had someone coming with disabilities, but at this point there was no more waiting. We had to go.

So I proceeded to gather them, right, and start going, start heading down. We got to about the 35th floor, in that general area. I don't remember specifically when I felt the building shaking. I thought for sure that my building was collapsing. It shook and it stopped.

Then I heard on the radio something I will never forget, it was from our police desk over at 5 World Trade Center. And the transmission said, "Tower 2 is down, all units evacuate Tower 1." I couldn't believe it. What do you mean, Tower 2 is down? I mean, it's the World Trade Center. Each building, 1,477 feet, can withstand anything. But it also raised in my mind if that building can fall, so can mine.

And now the people I was with were very upset, of course. I just told them, we have to keep going. And we started heading down again. On the 21st floor I ran into three of my supervisors, Chief Romito, Captain Mazza and Lieutenant Cirri. They were assisting a gentleman who has having difficulty walking and breathing. They were making a stretcher out of a soda push cart.

I told the chief about the other building going down and that this collapse was imminent. So he gathered the gentleman, one arm over his shoulder, Lieutenant Cirri grabbed the other arm, and we proceeded to take him down the building with Captain Mazza, myself and our people.

We went down. As we were going down, and now we were starting to lose power in the building, the lights were going on and off. We had some emergency lighting in the staircase and after '93, they'd painted stripes and they glow and it was very eerie watching the stairs as they lit up. I concentrated on the task at hand, which was to get the people out of the building.

I got down to the fifth floor and I saw, that is where I met Josephine Harris and Ladder Company 6, Ladder Company 6, a fire company out of Chinatown. Josephine Harris, who is a Port Authority employee, had walked down 72 flights, and she had a bad leg problem and she could go no further.

Captain Jonas, of Ladder 6, was attempting to find a chair to put her in to help carry her down. I told the captain it was too late. And following my chief's lead, I grabbed Josephine by one arm, Firefighter Tommy Falco grabbed the other arm, with Billy Butler right behind us, we started going down.

I remember my captain, Captain Mazza, telling me to leave and let the Fire Department handle that and to go with her. And I just said, I'm helping out, just go ahead. Well, one more flight down was as far as we got and the building started coming down. I knew that was it because the other building was already gone. The memory of that is very sharp in my mind, something I'll never forget. People always ask me, of course, but this,

I knew it was coming down.All I could think of is, well, if I could protect Josephine from the debris. So me and Tommy were covering her and it started coming. And you could feel the wind of pushing down as they were compressing through the building, you could hear the sound. It was like an on-rushing locomotive or an avalanche. You could almost feel the sound of the floors pancaking on top of each other as they were collapsing. As we all know, they collapsed straight down.

Actually, one of the firefighters, Matty, actually blew right by us as he went down. I didn't even know that until afterwards. And they just kept coming and coming. And I guess my final thoughts were about my family. I thought about my wife, my kids. Excuse me. I hoped they would think well of me for what I did. I was very fortunate. When the debris stopped falling -- excuse me.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Just take your time.

MR. LIM -- first I thought I had died. I heard nothing, I saw nothing. But then I heard a voice, I heard a voice, the voice of Captain Jonas, my new friend. The voice was, "Who's here?" And I heard a fireman that was in the stairwell with us shouting out the names of companies. I remember saying, "Lim, Port Authority police."

We couldn't see each other. It was totally black. We couldn't breathe. We had to try to breathe through our shirts, but we were fairly, in fairly good shape. We were alive. And we were very grateful for that.

I hoped then that Captain Jonas and the men of Ladder 6 and there were other fire companies below us, of course, there was a total of 12 firefighters, Josephine and myself in that stairwell. And for five hours, we fought to get out of there. When I say we fought, we fought as a team.

There were times you may have heard in New York that firefighters and police officers sometimes don't get along. Well, we changed all that. Between their actions and my expertise, after working almost 20 years in the building, we did manage eventually to work our way out.

We also managed to get ahold of our families, I was fortunate to have a couple of cell phones, and managed to get through to let them know that we were okay. And that was probably one of the hardest moments for me was trying to explain to my wife that I might not get out of there. But she's strong, a good cop's wife, she understood, I was doing my job.

We ended up going up to get out through the sixth floor stair, top of the staircase. We had started smelling jet fuel in the staircase, unburned jet fuel, and the fear of fire had caused us to work even harder to get out. We saw a light over the sixth-floor staircase and our first thought was that the floor had power in it and it was virtually, or at least partially, intact, we could make our stand there.

We felt we would be there for a lot longer than five hours. As it turns out, as that light got brighter, it turned out to be the sun. We were virtually standing on top of what was left of the World Trade Center. When I say that, you have to picture a straw in a pancake. We were in that straw.

By all the engineers and everybody else that tried to figure this out, there's no reason why I should be sitting here talking to you right now. It was just a small sliver of staircase from the sixth floor down to the first floor, damaged, though still enough to keep us alive, that preserved our lives.

We finally got through on the radio to Ladder Company 43 and they managed to come and throw us ropes. We managed to climb down onto the debris field in order to exit. They sent two of their officers to stand by with Josephine for a basket in order to carry her out.

Then came the trek to get out of Ground Zero. And that in itself was treacherous. One of our party had a concussion, Mikey Meldrom, so I was helping him. And the field was still on fire. There were things that we saw that, like I said, there is no need to repeat.

So we attempted to exit actually through, ironically enough, the U.S. Customs House over at Six World Trade Center, but then we saw fire and we heard what we thought was gunfire. And I guess in my moment of stress, I thought we were under attack and these guys had landed on the beach. And all I could think of was, well, I've got 46 rounds, I'll take 'em.

But as it turned out, it was just ammunition going off. But you still couldn't go out that way. We ended up going out by One World Trade Center and exiting on West Street. We finally got out, I think it was around 3:30 or so and we were beaten, but we were alive, virtually with minor injuries.

Myself, I was taken to the hospital with a concussion and some leg and back injuries which I have recovered from. But I guess it's the mental injuries that I still suffer at times. Yes, I still have some nightmares, I still have trouble, as you can see, talking about this at times, but I think it's important that we as a people move on.

One of the questions that I'm usually asked when I do speak about this is why don't I retire. I'm a 20-plus man, I can retire any time. And my answer is that I will retire at a time of my choosing, not at the choosing of some knucklehead from Afghanistan. No way is he going to determine when this cop is going to quit.

I just again want to thank you for allowing me to speak here. And I know, I know it's obviously not quite as important as all the people that we lost. I grieve for all those that I knew that day, I grieve for those that I will never know, but I also grieve for the best partner I ever had. Thank you very much.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Thank you. Mr. Ielpi?

Ielpi

MR. IELPI: Good morning. Before I start, let me say two things. One, I'm not used to reading, I'd rather talk candidly, but I'm going to have to read for time. And two, some of the things I'm going to say are going to be sensitive to some of the families that might be listening, so I'd like to let them know ahead of time.

I come to you today as an ambassador for the dead and on behalf of the many others who toiled at Ground Zero to recover the victims of the terrorist attack. My son Jonathan, a member of Squad Company 288 at the New York City Fire Department, was killed in the South Tower.

I am a retired firefighter and a grieving father. I bring no political agenda to this hearing. The only baggage I bear is a broken heart and a resolve that the terrible events of September 11th not be repeated.

Ten minutes is a very short time to summarize even one day of the horror and loss that filled Ground Zero. It is far too short to describe nine months of picking though rubble and debris, to find torsos, fingers, arms, bones and legs. Far too short to convey one year and seven months of missing my son and looking into the sorrowful eyes of his mother, his siblings, his wife, his children. I can only summarize. I cannot summarize an eternity, I can only share with you some of the images of Ground Zero that I will carry with me forever.

That morning when I arrived at the Trade Center site, I got there about half an hour, within a half an hour after the South Tower had come down. I saw my first fatality, a New York City firefighter laying by his apparatus. I continued down the block. I got down to West and Vessey where the walkway spanned the West Side Highway. It had collapsed onto a number of fire vehicles. We were able to crawl underneath of these vehicles and start a search.

We were able to turn off some of the engines that were still running. All of the souls that ran underneath of this walkway to find shelter were dead. My primary reason, of course, was to find my son. My ultimate reason was to find my son. I continued searching with a lot of my friends that I had met. I had been a firefighter for some 26 years and I know a lot of people on the job.

The searching continued in and out of voids, under and around spaces, and over and above, only to find death. We found no life. After the first bunch of hours at the site, for the remainder of those nine months, we were to find nobody alive. We were only going to find death.

I continued that day in searching. It became quite obvious as we progressed that it was going to be a difficult day for my family. The following days were much the same. I spent the better part of nine months at that site searching.

I met a lot of wonderful people that came from across this country to assist us. I cannot begin to tell you how wonderful it was to see and talk and listen to these people. These were men and women that came to serve us, to serve us food, to listen to us, to cry with us, to not say anything to us.

We worked with operating engineers, we worked with carpenters, we worked with iron workers, we worked with police, we worked with fire. I worked with a number of fathers who came to look for their sons. I brought a picture along with me that I will leave here. Many of these fathers that came did not find their sons.

On December 11th, three months to the day, I had left the site, I was home, it was about 11:30 at night, I got a phone call. It was Paul Ferro, who was the Deputy Chief at the site. He was working the night tour. When I heard his voice, I knew what it was. Paul said, Lee, we have your son. I said okay, Paul, I'll be right there.

I got my son Brendan, who is also a firefighter, we hopped in a car. We had a fire vehicle at our disposal. We headed back to the site. At about 1:30 in the morning, my son Brendan and I started our descent down into the site. And this is within the slurry-wall area, bathtub, otherwise known as, about 35 to 40 feet below level.

Over on the side was a stokes basket , and my son was in it. He was covered with an American flag. Paul Ferro came over to me and he put his hands on my shoulder and he said, Lee, he's all there. That meant something to me. And I will explain it later.

I went over to my son. I knelt down. I spoke to him. I still had to feel him from head to toe to satisfy my own curiosity. Then with the help of my son Brendan and some of the men from Squad 288, we picked up my son and we carried him up the hill. We placed him in an ambulance and my son Brendan and I rode with him to the morgue. We were able to bring home our son in one piece and we put him to bed at home where he belonged.

We have a chart here, if I could just show it for a second. The work that continued at the site went on for almost nine months. The New York City Fire Department used the GPS system to mark every remain that was found. This map, you can see the vast majority of remains, those are the towers.

Those towers sit within the slurry-wall area. That area goes down six stories deep. Every dot there represents a body part. We could not represent all of them because we went from grade level down to six stories below, so one dot may represent 5, 10, 15, 20 body parts. Thank you. I will leave that with you also.

We meet with the -- I belong to the Coalition of 9/11 Families. We meet with the Medical Examiner's Office every three weeks. I'll give you just a couple of quick figures here. Between Shanksville of course, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon, we know that some 3,000 lives were taken that day. At the World Trade Center site, 2,792 souls were murdered that day, 19,934 body parts were retrieved in nine months.

To date, 6,438 of those remains have been identified. To date, 13,447 of those remains still are unidentified and remain at the Medical Examiner's Office. Fourteen hundred and seveny seven families have been notified that their loved ones were found. 1,312 have not. Out of 2,792 souls lost at the World Trade Center, there were only 292 whole bodies. There will never be any more than 292 whole bodies. My son was one of those whole bodies.

One night after all the recovery work was over, I was at the site, six stories below grade at bedrock, for a small tribute. There were many of them. Afterwards, as I was ready to leave, I realized that no one was working. As I started to walk that long walk to the ramp that led out to street level, a Port Authority cop that I know drove by and said, "Would you like a ride up the hill?" I said, "No, I think I would like to walk." He understood and he left.

I had never been down there where there was this fire. I walked over to where they found my son. I cannot describe the overwhelming feeling of warmth and sadness as I stood there. And I could hear people talking. It was a very powerful feeling. Now I guess I'm going to try to help you hear those voices too.

We cannot change what happened on September 11th, but it must not be forgotten and it must never happen again. America's guardians failed us on 9/11. You are now the guardians of that legacy of that horrible day. Each of you personally, not merely as a member of a commission, now bear responsibility to see that the lessons you learn at these hearings are remembered, and more importantly, acted on.

I urge you not to fail the past or the future. And I thank you for the time.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Thank you very much. Colonel Birdwell?

Birdwell

COLONEL BIRDWELL: Good morning, Governor Kean, members of the Commission. Thank you for affording me this opportunity to share with you my experiences from the events of September 11th. It's also my distinct honor to be a representative of those in our national defense, the Pentagon and those currently serving overseas right now.

First let me establish where I was located inside the Pentagon at the moment of impact of American Airlines Flight 77. You have a slide inside your packet that I provided that gives you that layout. Inside the attached slide, you'll see the impact point on the E-ring, the outermost ring of the building. To the left of the collapsed structure, my office window is circled in yellow.

The top right-hand portion of the slide is called the corridor. The corridors are the spokes of the building that connect the rings to one another. The rectangular tan box designated with a red X at the top of the building shows the location of the elevators within the corridor.

As I stepped out of the men's restroom inside corridor 4 on the second floor to return to my office, I was passing in front of those elevators at the moment of impact, in fact moving toward the point of impact. The arrow originating from my circled office window indicates the window I was facing at the time of impact, approximately 15 to 20 yards behind that window inside the corridor.

As you can see from the slide, I had just crossed the path of the plane in going to the restroom and was just seconds from being in the direct path of the plane at the time of the impact. When an 80-ton airliner traveling at over 350 miles an hour with over 10,000 gallons of petroleum jet-A slams into a building 15 to 20 yards from you, you may also discern that I sit here at the miraculous hand of Christ.

In surviving the concussion and being conscious through it, the blast, the fire, the smoke, I am able to provide for you a glimpse of the ghastly, firey death that many died in that day. By virtue of surviving my injuries, I can provide you the great detail of the emotional and physical trauma of the critically injured.

As a husband and father, I can share with you the physical and emotional strain of my wife Mel and my son Matt as I experienced throughout my hospitalization and continued recovery. Let me share with you a little bit of that experience of my wife.

I too would offer the same thing that Lee offered as well, to the family members in the room today. At the moment of impact I went, in an instant, from a well-lit corridor that I had traversed many times to an earthly hell of fire, choking black smoke, physical and emotional pain and the disorientation, all of which seemed to last an eternity.

First was the physical pain of the fire. My body was burned with 60 to 65 percent total body surface burn area on my back, legs, face, neck, arms, hands, with approximately 40 percent of my burns being third degree. Portions of my face and each entire arm required complete grafting of skin from those portions of my body that could donate such skin. The heat, smoke and fuel vapor within my lungs inflicted a serious inhalation injury on me, as well. Second, I was disoriented and unable to navigate my way out of the building due to the loss of lighting, combined with the smoke that was pouring out of the building.

I cannot put into words, there are none sufficient in the English language, to describe for you the abject terror and panic that I experienced, not only facing such grievous, life-threatening injuries, but at the same time the inability to escape them. Third, I knew I was facing the finality of my life. I thought about how I had said good-bye to my wife Mel that morning, and my son Matt, and how it would be my last.

In moments immediately after impact, I reacted normally with the survival instincts of trying to save myself. I attempted to get to my feet but was unable to do so, given the concussion and blast of the explosion and the subsequent vacuum that had to be filled and the damage that had on my sense of balance. After an undetermined amount of time, I eventually accepted my death and collapsed to the floor and waited for whatever that feeling is of the soul departing your body. By God's grace, I never felt that feeling.

Instead, I could feel liquid running down my face, but it wasn't blood, it was cold. In fact it was water. I had collapsed into one of the functioning sprinkler systems inside the Pentagon. That water was able to douse the flames on and around me and I was eventually evacuated for treatment at Georgetown University Hospital.

In my written remarks, I wanted to pause and move on in the interests of time, but let me share just a little bit of that with you, if I may, Governor. With your permission, let me just share that with you.

Inside corridor 4 on the second floor, there are portions that were still under renovation, portions that were, on my right side, that were plywooded up, still under construction. Portions on my left were badge-access doors that, even though my badge was burned beyond recognition at that point, even if it had functioned, I did not have access to those areas. The corridor to the A-ring, which is the innermost circle, the innermost ring of the Pentagon, the fire doors had already closed. I was only operating with emergency lights and the will to survive and God's grace am I still being alive.

As I moved, actually staggered, it was not a walk, it was not calm, I was not able to run, I got down to about B-ring where Bill McKennan and Roy Wallace stepped out of the B-ring doors to see if there were any survivors inside the hallway. I was the only one there. Pieces of my skin were still hanging off of me, pants burned, portions of my polyester pants had melted to me. It's not a description I wish to go into in greater detail because Roy was already rather descriptive of it for me already.

They and two other gentlemen carried me to the A-ring through one of the passages that they had within their area, took me to Redskins Snack Bar. You may be familiar with that, Secretary Lehman. At that point I was laid down for triage with five other seriously injured people. I was the first one evacuated.

Fortunately, I had a great Air Force doctor, Dr. Baxter, give me a shot of morphine in my foot and then in the other foot gave me the IV bag. My feet were the only portion of my body that they could determine was not seriously injured. I was immediately evacuated by ambulance inside the Pentagon up to North Parking, from North Parking taken to Georgetown University Hospital by a Ford Expedition.

Inside Georgetown University, I had yet another seminal moment. Major John Collison had accompanied me to Georgetown. I knew that when Dr. Williams, the attending physician there, told me they were soon to place me under general anesthesia and intubate me that he was going to do the best he could to save my life. But I also knew that I was facing, in being under anesthesia, that my last words were maybe those that I now speak.

I asked John to take the wedding ring off my finger. It removed skin, it removed muscle, it removed other tissue, but I don't recall it hurting. I don't know if that was because of the morphine that I received from Dr. Baxter or because I was more concerned with the manner of my death and how my life or my death was going to give witness to those on the medical staff.

John took the ring off. I looked at the hospital chaplain and asked to say a prayer, a prayer of salvation, actually, rather, sovereignty of God in my life, not of salvation. We said that prayer. And after that prayer I had the peace of God's concern in my life and his sovereignty in my life to look at Dr. Williams and say, let's get on with it, resting in his sovereignty.

I was fortunate, as you can imagine, to be sitting here with you today. I was evacuated to Washington Hospital Center Burn Unit by ambulance, or by air ambulance, after the FAA had opened air space inside Washington D.C. That evening I was admitted where I would spend the next three-plus months enduring 30 surgeries, 24 days on a respirator, 26 days in intensive care, nearly 90 days breathing through a trache , numerous tank sessions of sterile debridement in a solution of water, iodine and chlorine -- and I can tell you that is, short of being a prisoner of war, probably the most horrific, painful experience you can endure -- three days of maggots to eat the dead tissue off my arms, to sterilize the infection, to give me live tissue, living tissue, that the doctors could then graft on top of, daily physical therapy to the point of requiring a morphine derivative, Dilaudid, prior to each session, in addition to the scheduled pain medications.

The physical environment was agonizing, but the emotional pain was probably far worse. Seeing the anguish my wife was enduring on my behalf, the separation she endured from Matt and to complicate that emotional pain was my inability to communicate with her for a good portion of my hospitalization, and that physical incapacitation combined with the pain medications that I was receiving.

Mel and Matt had already overcome the immediate torment of those first few moments and hours of watching the attacks. Mel had previously accompanied me to my office when we made the move from one part of the building to the other. She knew that my office overlooked the helipad and in watching the local news coverage, saw the helipad and the row of windows overlooking it with fire coming out of them.

Mel and Matt eventually learned that I was alive and were quite overjoyed at that. The greatest challenges ahead were dealing with the medical setbacks that are indicative of not knowing if I would survive. In our visits together, especially Matt's, the overtone was always, is this my last chance to speak with Dad alive.

By virtue of the hand of the Lord, an outstanding group of medical professionals, the presence of my church and the presence of the U.S. Army family, I sit here before you enjoying the remainder of my life. I trust that you will keep my life and those of other citizens of this great nation in mind as you go about the business of determining how we can improve our processes to combat terrorism.

I look forward to answering any questions that you may have about my family's experience. Again, thank you for the honor to be here with you today.

Sincock

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Mr. Sincock?

DR. SINCOCK: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, I'm Dr. Craig Sincock of Woodbridge, Virginia. To me, it is an honor to come to you today as a citizen, an Army officer of 34 years, and as a surviving spouse of September 11, 2001.

Before I proceed into the things that I had written down, this gentleman right beside me, Brian Birdwell, is the only survivor out of my wife's office. He is now my dearest friend. He's like a brother to me.

The Pentagon was my building and it was my wife's building too, my wife, Cheryle. I was first stationed there in 1985, brand new W-2 with the Army. My wife came in 1987, working as an Army civil servant. Both of us went to work there, usually together, from those years until the events of 9/11. I worked in just about every corridor and most of the floors of that building. I met countless thousands of people, both military and civilian. Most of those people I consider as friends.

My wife made several promotions through the years as an Army civil servant. She was excited about where she worked, who she worked for, and the fact that she was doing her small part to make the system work better.

On the day her world ended, Cheryle got up at 3:00 a.m., got dressed, and drove herself to work at 4:30. My last recollection of her was standing in our bedroom combing her hair. We said good-bye and I told her I would call her later to see if she wanted to come home early. This was one of those days when her illnesses made her very sick, but being sick never stopped her from work, from her duty.

I followed her to work about a half hour later. This was our normal schedule for almost 15 years. And although I was on leave, I went to work anyway. Leave was, year-end use-or-lose type of leave in the military, but that did not mean I did not do my job. And I credit my wife, Cheryle, with showing me that side of the work ethic.

I called Cheryle at about 8:30. She sounded like she was hurting. In fact, she told me her head was just pounding. That meant usually that her blood pressure was elevated, but true to her form, she said no to going home at that time. I told her I had been invited to participate in a meeting in Rosslyn and I should be back in the early afternoon. That was the last time I talked to my wife. I know I told her I loved her and for that I'm ever so grateful.

When the plane hit the Pentagon an hour later, I felt the shudder two miles away in Rosslyn. When I looked out the window and saw the first plume of smoke go up, I simultaneously heard the TV announcer in a back room say that the south parking lot of the Pentagon had been hit by an airplane.

My heart stopped because I just knew that was where Cheryle worked and something told me she was in danger. I ran the two miles back to the Pentagon, through Arlington Cemetery. I spent that entire day, until 11:30 that night, working, praying, and hoping at the side of the building we called home. It was not until the next morning that I got the official word from the Army that my wife Cheryle, my bride of almost 25 years, was on the missing list.

That is what happened to Cheryle and 183 others that day. What has happened to the families and friends since that day is another story. I like to think of 9/11 as an event and what we do now as the journey after the event. Every once in awhile, someone or something will take us back to that day. Those are the triggers from the event. We hope that as time goes by, the triggers become less in frequency and their results less in depth.

This is the reason I said yes to coming before you today. What you do here, the results you obtain and the recommendations you send forward, will, I sincerely hope, lessen those triggers for all of us.

I found early on in my grieving process that to hold onto anger brought on resentment. And with resentment came sleepless nights, foggy days, and bad memories. So you won't hear anger from me. I won't talk about what people should have done, for that would be to try to place blame somewhere. That may be part of what you end up doing, but it is not part of my responsibility.

I will however, give you some personal observations.

I watched that day as everyone with any authority tried to take charge of something, take charge of anything, but no one was really in charge. No matter how many times the scenario of a plane crashing into the Pentagon during takeoff or landing at National Airport had been practiced, no one was prepared for this attack.

I know many of these in the Defense Protective Service and there's not one of them that I would fault for not doing their job and then some that day. I know many of the building support personnel and they too are above reproach and blame. I've worked for many of the top-level and mid-level managers of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. Each one of them and their subordinates did what their training and their instincts directed them to do. Some of them died trying.

If there is anything to blame, it is our systems, our bureaucracies and our inflexibility towards change. That is normal for bureaucracies and large systems. That is what happened on 9/11. Those who are used to change, are trained to respond to events demanding instant change, are the police, fire and rescue. Bureaucrats do not like change, in fact they fear it, for their programs may go away and with it their very existence.

So when these same bureaucrats tried to respond to 9/11 events, they were not prepared for it, but we should not blame them for that because we may have made them what they are. We do this with our antiquated programming, budgeting and execution methods. We do this by outsourcing almost everything we do until we make our government managers policy makers rather than decision makers.

We cannot fault our fine nonprofit organizations and the multitude of companies that responded to the needs starting within many hours of the tragedy. These people brought everything they could think of, provided every service they could, and extended themselves, usually at a loss of profit. But within months of the event, the attitude of these same people, not all of them to be sure, but a lot of them, went back to the way they had been before 9/11. They did what so many of our own citizens did. They reverted to what was comfortable and known. This is one of the prime laws of systems thinking, which I happen to have a doctorate in, that tells us that a system always reverts to where it is comfortable. That's where bureaucracies go, back to being comfortable.

Some of the organizations that responded had gone through similar incidents and responses like this before. Some of them already had response models they could modify quickly. But the vast majority of responders did not have a clue because this was so much bigger, so much different than anything they had ever seen before. And now almost a year and a half has gone by and we still don't have any more models of crisis response than we had before.

I'm certain that some bureaucrats have probably worked on a few of those and spent several millions of dollars of public funds to try to get a model going, but I suspect that when push comes to shove, God forbid, those models will have become shelfware. For until our bureaucracies start to train themselves on how to change, on how to be flexible and pliable, they will never be in a position to respond properly to events such as 9/11.

I trust that what you do here will be guided by finding answers, not placing blame. I trust that you will search out the truth, no matter where it leads, and pass that truth to those who can make changes that matter. I trust that you will do the next right thing.

As you call your witnesses and try to find out what happened and why, please try to remember that those who were at the sites that day, those who lost loved ones and friends, those who were injured, are still going through their private and individualized trauma and grief processes. Some may be angry, many may be depressed, some may be distraught and others may have their own agendas. Try to understand that each of these people will try to do their best given the circumstances that befell them.

You are now part of their healing process. I know you will do right by them and right by our great country, the United States of America.

Thank you once again for the honor of being here, and God bless.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Thank you all very much. You're an extraordinary group of people. And I thank you all so much for being here today. Senator Gorton has a question.

COMMISSIONER GORTON: Mr. Waizer, was there anyone else on that elevator?

MR. WAIZER: There was another woman, a black, middle-aged woman, who I have tried to identify. I think I know who she was. And if it's who I think it was, she died in the hospital. She didn't make it down to another ambulance. But I have never be able to confirm that.

COMMISSIONER GORTON: I was going to have a question for Mr. Lim, Mr. Chairman, but he answered it. He went back to work. And I just wanted to say that that was a great thing to do. You really deserve our admiration, not only for what you did on that day but you're back to work right now.

MR. LIM: There's a great need for bomb-dog handlers right now.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Thank you. Any other questions from the Commission?

COMMISSIONER GORELICK: I'd just like to make a comment. When we were deciding what to do for our first hearing, we considered many different alternatives. And clearly we wanted to hear from the families of the victims. We also wanted to hear firsthand from people who had experienced the tragedy themselves for two reasons. One, we knew it would motivate us. And it has. We will collectively keep your stories with us as we go on this journey. And two, you have given us some challenges to live up to. As you said, you are speaking for so many others. And we have heard you. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Yes, Senator?

COMMISSIONER CLELAND: Mr. Chairman, come April 8th, I will celebrate 35 years after my tremendous trauma and challenges, grieving all that, physical loss and pain and suffering.

And this is an extraordinary story. The nation needed to hear it. We needed to hear it. We love you. We appreciate you. And we hope that God continues to strengthen you in your struggle. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Thank you very much. The next panel, Stephen Push, Mary Fetchet, Mindy Kleinberg, Allison Vadhan.

(Recess)

Representatives of the Victims

Push

CHAIRMAN KEAN: We will call the session back to order. I'd like to introduce, first of all, Stephen Push from the Families of September 11.

MR. PUSH: Governor Kean, Congressman Hamilton, and the other members of the Commission, thank you for inviting me to offer my views about the Commission as it starts its investigation of the worst terrorist attack in American history. And thank you all for taking on this assignment. You're doing a tremendous service for your country.

You have an extremely important task before you. What is at stake is nothing less than the legitimacy of the United States government. The primary function of government is to provide for the common defense. If the government cannot do that effectively, everything else it does is of little value.

I would like to explain to you what it was that brought me before you today. I don't claim to speak for all the 9/11 families, but I believe that many of them have similar views concerning the need for this Commission.

When my wife, Lisa Raines, was murdered aboard American Airlines Flight 77, I was immediately cast into a spiral of shock, disbelief, and grief. Within two weeks, however, my strongest emotion was anger. And I think I probably differ substantially from Mr. Waizer and Dr. Sincock in that. In fact, actually, anger is an inadequate word to describe what I felt. What I felt was a rage so intense it was like no emotion I had ever felt before. But I haven't let go of this anger. I've tried to pour it into working to see that something like this never happens again.

Initially my rage was directed at the hijackers. Why did they do this? What did they expect to accomplish? What had Lisa done to them? But as I read the newspapers and spent night after sleepless night watching cable news networks and searching books and the Web for information about terrorism, I also became angry at my government, the government that was supposed to protect Lisa but that, as I eventually learned, had failed her and the other 3,000-plus victims of 9/11.

I learned, for instance, that two of the hijackers on Lisa's plane were known to the CIA. In fact, the CIA even knew that one of them had a multiple-entry visa to come into the country. They knew that they were associated, I found out a little later on that they were associated with the people who bombed the Cole, the USS Cole, knew that they had attended a terrorism conference in Kuala Lumpur. Nevertheless, they were allowed to enter the country, to live here for months and to board the plane using their own names.

I also learned that, for 14 years prior to 9/11, the Government Accounting Office repeatedly documented the ineffectiveness of the aviation security system, but during that 14-year period, nothing was done to correct the problems.

I realized that al Qaeda had first attacked America in 1993, declared war on America a few years later, and mounted a series of increasingly daring and deadly attacks. While all of this was happening, the Clinton administration took only ineffectual steps against al Qaeda. And after all of these clear signs that we were at war with a ruthless enemy, the new Bush administration put counterterrorism on the back burner until September 11th.

I am now convinced that this tragedy did not have to happen. 9/11 was foreseeable. And it could have been prevented. But even if you don't accept my word on that, I think everyone must admit that at the very least 9/11 exposed serious problems with our counterterrorism and national-security procedures.

I'm not advocating conspiracy theories. I personally don't believe that anyone in the government had specific knowledge of what would happen on 9/11. If only it were that simple, we could then easily correct the problem by investigating and punishing those responsible.

But I fear that what we're up against is far more insidious. There has been a failure of leadership in this country that cuts across decades and political parties. Too many politicians put reelection above national security. Too many government managers favor process over results and careerism over service.

I'm not maligning the many brave men and women who protect us. I have great respect and gratitude to those in the military and the intelligence agencies and for the many others who have dedicated their lives to public service, but in too many cases, they have been poorly led.

I'd like to make a comment about something that Mr. Ben-Veniste and one of the witnesses said about not pointing fingers. I think this Commission should point fingers. I'm not suggesting that you find scapegoats, someone to hang out to dry, but there were people, people in responsible positions, who failed us on 9/11. They didn't just fail us once; 9/11 occurred because they were failing us over a long period of time. Some of these people are still in responsible positions in the government. Perhaps they shouldn't be. And that's one of the things I think you need to look at and think about.

I also hope that you will, in conducting your investigation, talk to some of the rank and file in the agencies that you will be looking at. I notice that you have some people from the Fire Department and the Police Department speaking tomorrow. I don't know what level they're at, but you should speak to some of the rank and file in those departments and see if what the leaders are telling you squares with what the rank and file are telling you.

The same goes for the federal agencies. I'm in touch with a number of former and current employees of the Federal Aviation Administration and the new Transportation Security Administration who have horror stories to tell about our aviation security. And I'd like you to listen to them. Maybe not everything they say is legitimate, but there is a lot there for you to look at that requires serious consideration.

I'd also like to say something about what Mr. Waizer said about these commissions coming to naught in the end. If I have anything to say about it, that's not going to happen. Your report is not the end of the process, it's the beginning.

And I think I can speak for some of the other families who are here today, we're not going away. We're going to see that your recommendations are translated into legislation, that the legislation is translated into effective action by the agencies.

Since 9/11, there have been some important successes in the war on terrorism. Afghanistan has been liberated, al Qaeda has been disrupted, and many of al Qaeda's leaders have been captured.

But there have been far too many failures, as well. For example, despite the expensive and highly publicized creation of the Transportation Security Administration, aviation security is still little better than it was on 9/11.

Just last month, an investigative journalist was able to defeat the carry-on-bag screening process at a major American airport 10 out of 10 times. This is a year and a half after 9/11, months after the TSA has taken over responsibility for all the airports, an investigative journalist can carry unallowed items through security a hundred percent of the time at a major American airport.

And this is not just one incident. I just mentioned this one because it happened long after TSA had taken over. But I just this weekend watched a compilation tape of stories that were done by national and local television stations over the period starting before 9/11 and continuing throughout the period when TSA was training and hiring and taking over, right up until last month. And in every single one of those instances, they were able to defeat the system between 50 and 100 percent of the time. I will provide you with a copy of that tape. It's sickening.

The TSA's response to this latest story, to this latest appalling failure rate, was to assert that "proper screening procedures were followed." I'm sure the families of the next hijack victims will take great comfort in knowing that "procedures were followed."

These ineffectual reforms of transportation security focus almost exclusively on addressing past attacks. And this seems to be a recurring theme in the government. Let's respond to the last attack. Richard Reid uses a shoe bomb, so let's check everybody's shoes. Well, the terrorists are probably a little smarter than that and probably the next time it's not going to be shoes.

But most of what's been done by the TSA so far responds to the threats that became evident on 9/11 and the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie. Little has been done to address other aviation-security issues, and these issues are well known. Little has been done to address threats to other modes of transportation.

We have to do much more than prevent a repeat of prior terrorist attacks. We need people in government who know how to anticipate new tactics and develop methods to defeat them. Even more important, we need to understand and change the causes of terrorism. This will require a major change in the government's mindset.

I urge you to look beyond al Qaeda and beyond 9/11 and examine the underlying problems that this country has not fully faced and has done little to address. I urge you to ask the tough questions and offer tough solutions.

For example, what changes need to be made in our foreign policy, including -- no, not including -- especially in our relations with so-called friends such as Saudi Arabia?

Does the new Department of Homeland Security really make America safer or has the government just reshuffled the boxes on the organizational chart?

Can we obtain useful counterterrorism intelligence from an intelligence community made up of 14 different agencies when no one is in charge of the entire operation?

Can the FBI, an agency steeped in a law-enforcement culture transform itself into a counterterrorism agency, or do we need to create an agency similar to Britain's MI-5?

Are political campaign contributions from the airlines undermining Congressional oversight of aviation security?

These are just a few of the questions you are going to need to answer. The list of questions is too long for this brief testimony. I know that other 9/11 families and many other people have provided you or can provide you with far more comprehensive lists.

The families, the 9/11 families, aren't asking these questions for our own benefit. We have already been irreparably damaged. Our loved ones have already paid the ultimate price. We ask these questions for all Americans, for all people who may be the next victims of terrorism, for future generations.

Thank you again for inviting me to testify. And good luck in your search for the truth.

Fetchet

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Thank you. Mary Fetchet , who is from Voices of 9/11 .

MS. FETCHET: Good afternoon. My name is Mary Fetchet. I tragically lost my son Brad in the most devastating attack on our country, the attacks on the World Trade Center. I am Co-Chair of Voices of September 11th and a member of the family steering committee for the 9/11 Independent Commission. I'm honored to be here today and want to thank Governor Kean, Mr. Hamilton, and all the commissioners for the opportunity to discuss my expectations for the 9/11 Commission.

I want to express to all of you my very deep concern about the slow progress of the Commission and stress the urgency we feel as precious time is being wasted. I also want to impress on you the importance of the Commission's investigation in answering our mounting questions.

Your investigation will help identify the systemic problems within and amongst government agencies that contributed to the success of the terrorists in carrying out this horrific attack on our country.

It will also set a framework for the necessary changes to insure national security. The responsibility of the success of this investigation rests on your shoulders. We have waited far too long for this Commission to get up and running.

As a mother who lost her child, it is my moral obligation to speak on behalf of my son and all those that died on September 11th. They deserve answers to how and why they were senselessly murdered in their own country, nearly 3,000 innocent citizens at work and traveling on American aircraft. I also speak on behalf of my family and other families who are searching for answers to how and why their loved ones died on September 11th. We deserve answers to the long list of questions we have.

Most importantly, I am here as a citizen, like you and the rest of the nation, who continues to feel unprotected at these volatile times. For the sake of our children, we feel a great sense of urgency. What were the failures? Who was accountable?

As I speak about my son, I would like to share with you a picture which I took this morning from his 15-year-old brother's bedroom. Brad was 24 years' old and the oldest of our three sons. He worked at Keefe, Bruyette and Woods as an equity trader on the 89th floor of Tower 2. Brad was an understated, athletic, handsome young man, as you can see from the picture, with a sparkle in his eyes and a wonderful smile. Much like the 3,000 other innocent victims, he was hard working and dedicated to his family and friends.

Brad was planning to become engaged to his girlfriend of three years, Brooke. When Brad died, my husband and I lost a son and our dreams for his future, a wedding, a daughter-in-law and grandchildren. His younger brothers have lost a friend, a coach, a mentor, a confidant and a companion.

It is incomprehensible that the devastation was so great that our families are being notified of minute body parts, such as a finger, a jaw or a vertebra, or worse, nothing at all. We have been notified three times of Brad's limited remains and have had a memorial service and a burial. We will wait until the notification process ends before we have a final burial. It may continue for years.

On September 11th, Brad called my husband at work shortly after the first plane hit Tower 1. Like other times when there was an emergency in the building, he wanted to reassure us that he was okay. He was shaken because he had seen someone, quote, "drop from the 91st floor, all the way down." He knew a plane hit Tower 1, but wasn't aware it was a commercial jet.

The Port Authority directed my son's company to stay put in their office, quote, "that the building is safe and secure." My husband asked Brad to call me at home and here's the recording of his call left on my message machine at home around 9 o'clock a.m.:

"Hey Mom, it's Brad. I just wanted to call and let you know, I'm sure that you've heard, or maybe you haven't heard, that a plane crashed into World Trade Center One. We're fine, we're in World Trade Center Two. I'm obviously alive and well over here, but it's obviously a pretty scary experience. I saw a guy fall out of probably the 91st story all the way down. So you're welcome to give a call here. I think we'll be here all day. I'm not sure if the firm is going to shut down for the day or what. Give me a call back later. I called Dad to let him know. Love you."

Brad always tried to be strong so I would not worry. Although he wasn't aware his life was in danger, I can hear the fear in his voice. I never had the opportunity to return his call, to say good-bye and tell him I love him.

Brad made two calls to his girlfriend, the last after the second plane hit Tower 2. The message was brief. Sirens were sounding in the background and he was franticly trying to escape the building. Other families received similar calls from their loved ones after the building was hit.

These individuals knew they were going to die. They were trapped above the fire, asphyxiated or injured, and unable to escape. They died a horrendous death.

So I ask you, if the house next door to your home was hit by a plane or on fire, would you direct your family to remain in your home? How is it that people would be directed to remain in a 110-story building supposedly, quote, "safe and secure," when its twin tower is billowing in smoke, and people are jumping to their death to avoid a high-rise fire? How is it is that Brad was unaware of the dangerous situation he was in 15 minutes after the first plane hit Tower 1? Precious time was wasted.

Unlike Brad's situation, Rick Rescorla, Director of Security for Morgan Stanley, directed his employees to leave the building, to disregard the Port Authority's commands to evacuees to, quote, "return up to their offices."

How is it that they were receiving such conflicting information which ultimately, senselessly, cost my son's life and the lives of 600 others in Building 2? What lessons were learned after the bombing in 1993? Were there evacuation policies in place? Were they followed? No one in Building 2 should be dead today. What were the failures and who is accountable?

Furthermore, what communications existed to warn city authorities and the Port Authority that hijacked commercial aircraft appeared headed for their targets? More specifically, what was New York City and the Port Authority told about the findings of the Joint FBI and NYPD Terrorist Task Force?

What were the breakdowns in communication between the control towers, the FAA, NORAD, and other government agencies? On a larger scale, what were the CIA, the FBI, the INS and the military doing to protect our country? What were the systemic failures? Who should be held accountable?

September 11th has repeatedly been referred to as a wake-up call. Our president said on September 27, 2001, "We have awakened to a new danger, but our resolve is great." As late as May 16, 2002, Condoleeza Rice stated that, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."

But September 11th should not have been a wake-up call. Nor was it a new danger. September 11th should have been predictable. The loss of life in the 1993 bombing and the continued threats, specifically on the World Trade Center and other New York City landmarks, should have been the wake-up call.

In fact, Eleanor Hill from the Joint Intelligence Committee concludes, "There was considerable historical evidence that international terrorists had planned and were, in fact, capable of conducting major terrorist strikes within the United States."

Despite increased chatter and the CIA Director, George Tenet, issuing a declaration of war on al Qaeda on December 4, 1998, the FBI and CIA failed to communicate or coordinate their efforts in providing national security. How could this be that the two intelligence agencies responsible for our safety are not coordinating their efforts to protect our citizens? How could this happen and who is accountable?

The Hart-Rudman Commission released on February 2001 also predicted a terrorist attack of great magnitude and loss of life on our own soil. This report both identified the increasing threat of terrorism and was also a blueprint for the development of homeland security, which, if implemented, could have prevented September 11th. However, their recommendations to address these threats were never implemented. The report sat on a shelf.

It is also important to note that two earlier presidential commissions on airline safety, security and antiterrorism were established following airline disasters, the Pan Am Flight 103 and the TWA Flight 800. However, these commissions were bogged down by lobbying from the aviation industry. Timetables were delayed, and financial expenditures were given priority over the safety of human lives.

During this time what steps did the aviation community take amidst the growing threat, one which centered on using aircraft as bombs and American cities as targets? If an effective security system was in place, how did box cutters get through security? What were the failures and who is accountable?

Thankfully, we live in a country with freedom of speech. Yet our elected officials with oversight have neglected to implement prior commissions' important recommendations to improve airline and national security. We have a strong military support, yet they were not able to protect us within our own borders.

We have sophisticated intelligence agencies that, for reasons unknown to the public, are territorial and have been proven to be ineffective, at least as far as protecting American lives. Our nation is technologically advanced, yet the technology is not protecting the skyways of America.

Before September 11th, I assumed we were safe and secure living in the United States, that the threat of terrorism was outside our country, that government officials and other agencies were competent, responsible individuals, coordinating their efforts and acting in our best interests. I found out the hard way that I was naive, that my assumptions were wrong.

Unfortunately, the threat of terrorism exists in our country. The building that Brad worked in was unsafe and an identified target. And government agencies with the responsibility to protect us have major systemic problems communicating.

For 18 months our family has been denied the truth that a thorough investigation would reveal. As a family member, I am frustrated to have suffered the loss of a son and yet to be required to spend time away from my family and fight for the establishment of a commission that should have been in place on the day of the tragic events.

Following a recent mining disaster and tragic Columbian aircraft explosion, commissions were established immediately, with substantial funding. It is now 18 months later. We're at war with heightened alert. Yet the Commission has had a slow start. A quest for the truth has to begin at the top, with the support of the administration, to require all government agencies to provide necessary documents and act in full cooperation with the Commission.

Security for all Commissioners and staff should be expedited. Necessary funds should be allocated for a Commission of this magnitude. The findings of this Commission are of utmost importance to developing an effective Homeland Security Department.

I found a journal my son began writing at age 21. On the first page he wrote a quote which best describes how he lived his life: "You can tell the character of a man by what he does for the man who can offer him nothing."

I challenge you, the Commissioners, the staff, and all those involved with the success of this Commission to approach this important inquiry with the same manner that Brad approached life, to approach it with an open mind and with integrity, above all, with a sense of urgency and a full commitment to the time and energy that will be necessary to do a complete and thorough job.

It is your moral and legal obligation to insure that no stone is unturned. Most importantly, each Commissioner must recuse themselves in areas that they have a conflict of interest. Our nation deserves this Commission to be different. We want to prevent other families from suffering the loss we have had to endure. We want you to answer our questions, identify systemic failures, and resolve problems.

Despite the cost, we want recommendations that are implemented and we want accountability. We want to know that changes are being made so our families can feel safe living in this country. Ultimately, you are accountable for the success of this Commission.

In closing, I would like to offer my sincerest condolences to the families of the brave soldiers who perished in Iraq. I understand their grief. May God bless my son and all those who died as a result of September 11th and may their spirit grant you the strength and wisdom as you proceed with this important contribution for the sake of our nation. Thank you.

Kleinberg

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Thank you very much. Mindy Kleinberg from September 11th Advocates.

MS. KLEINBERG: My name is Mindy Kleinberg. My husband Alan, 39 years old, was killed in the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. As I testify here today about the 9/11 attacks, I will begin by saying that my thoughts are very much with the men and women who are involved in armed conflict overseas and their families who wait patiently for them to return.

This war is being fought on two fronts, overseas as well as here on our shores. This means that we are all soldiers in this fight against terrorism. As the threat of terrorism mounts here in the United States, the need to address the failures of September 11th is more important than ever. It is an essential part of lessons learned.

As such, this commission has an extremely important task before it. I'm here today to ask you, the Commissioners, to help us understand how this could have happened. Help us understand where the breakdown was in our nation's defense capabilities.

Where we were on the morning of September 11th. On the morning of September 11th my three-year-old son, Sam, and I walked Jacob, 10, and Lauren, seven, to the bus stop at about 8:40 a.m. It was the fourth day of a new school year and you could still feel everyone's excitement. It was such a beautiful day that Sam and I literally skipped home, oblivious to what was happening in New York.

At around 8:55 I was confirming play-date plans for Sam when a friend said, "I can't believe what I'm watching on TV, a plane has just hit the World Trade Center." For some reason it didn't register with me until a few minutes later, I asked her calmly, "What building did you say? Oh, that's Alan's building, I have to call you back."

There was no answer when I tried to reach him at the office. By now my house started filling with people -- his mother, my parents, our sisters and friends. The seriousness of the situation was beginning to register. We spent the rest of the day calling hospitals and the Red Cross and anyplace else we could think of to see if we could find him. I will never forget thinking all day long, "How am I going to tell Jacob and Lauren that their father was missing?"

They came home to a house filled with people but no Daddy. How were they going to be able to wait calmly for his return? What if he was really hurt? This was their hero, their king, their best friend, their father. The thoughts of that day replay over and over in our heads, always wishing for a different outcome.

We are trying to learn to live with the pain. We will never forget where we were or how we felt on September 11th. But where was our government, its agencies and institutions prior to and on the morning of September 11th?

The theory of luck. With regard to the 9/11 attacks, it has been said that the intelligence agencies have to be right 100 percent of the time and the terrorists only have to get lucky once. This explanation for the devastating attacks of September 11th, simple on its face, is wrong in its value, because the 9/11 terrorists were not just lucky once, they were lucky over and over again. Allow me to illustrate.

The SEC. The terrorists' lucky streak began the week before September 11th with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. The SEC, in concert with the United States intelligence agencies, has sophisticated software programs that are used in real time to watch both domestic and overseas markets to seek out trends that may indicate a present or future crime.

In the week prior to September 11th both the SEC and U.S. intelligence agencies ignored one major stock-market indicator, one that could have yielded valuable information with regard to the September 11th attacks. On the Chicago Board Options Exchange during the week before September 11th, put options were purchased on American and United Airlines, the two airlines involved in the attacks. The investors who placed these orders were gambling that in the short term, the stock prices of both airlines would plummet.

Never before on the Chicago Exchange were such large amounts of United and American Airlines options traded. These investors netted a profit of several million dollars after the September 11th attacks. Interestingly, the names of the investors remain undisclosed and the millions remain unclaimed in the Chicago Exchange account.

Why were these aberrant trades not discovered prior to 9/11? Who were the individuals who placed these trades? Have they been investigated? Who was responsible for monitoring these activities? Have those individuals been held responsible for their inaction?

The INS. Prior to 9/11, our United States intelligence agencies should have stopped the 19 terrorists from entering this country for intelligence reasons alone. However, their failure to do so in 19 instances does not negate the luck involved for the terrorists when it comes to their visa applications and our Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS.

With regard to the INS, the terrorists got lucky 15 individual times because 15 of the 19 hijackers' visas should have been unquestionably denied.

Most of the 19 hijackers were young, unmarried, unemployed males. They were, in short, the classic overstay candidates. A seasoned former Consular Officer stated in National Review Magazine, "Single, idle young adults with no specific destination in the United States rarely get visas absent compelling circumstances."

Yet these 19 young, single, unemployed, "classic overstay candidates still received their visas." I am holding in my hand some of the applications of the terrorists who killed my husband. All of these forms are incomplete and incorrect.

Some of the terrorists listed their means of support as simply "student" failing to then list the name and address of any school or institution. Others, when asked about their means of support for their stay in the United States wrote "myself" and provided no further documentation. Some of the terrorists listed their destination as simply "hotel" or "California" or "New York". One even listed his destination as "no".

Had the INS or the State Department followed the law, at least 15 of the hijackers would have been denied visas and would not have been in the United States on September 11, 2001.

Help us to understand how something as simple as reviewing forms for completeness could have been missed at least 15 times. How many more lucky terrorists gained unfettered access into this country? With no one being held accountable, how do we know that this still isn't happening?

On the morning of September 11th, the terrorists' luck commenced with airline and airport security. When the 19 hijackers went to purchase their tickets and to receive their boarding passes, nine were singled out and questioned through a screening process. Luckily for those nine terrorists, they passed the screening process and were allowed to continue on with their mission.

But the terrorists' luck did not end at the ticket counter, it accompanied them through airport security, as well, because how else would the hijackers get specifically contraband items such as box cutters, pepper spray, or, according to one FAA executive summary, a gun, on those planes?

Finally, sadly for us, years of GAO recommendations to secure cockpit doors were ignored making it all too easy for the hijackers to gain access to the flight controls and carry out their suicide missions.

The FAA and NORAD. Prior to 9/11, FAA and Department of Defense manuals gave clear, comprehensive instructions on how to handle everything from minor emergencies to full-blown hijackings. These protocols were in place and were practiced regularly for a good reason -- with heavily trafficked airspace, airliners without radio and transponder contact are collisions waiting to happen.

These protocols dictate that in the event of an emergency, the FAA is to notify NORAD. Once that notification takes place, it is then the responsibility of NORAD to scramble fighter jets to intercept the errant plane. It is a matter of routine procedure for fighter jets to intercept commercial airliners in order to regain contact with the pilot. In fact, between June 2000 and September 2001, fighter jets were scrambled 67 times.

If that weren't enough protection, on September 11th, NEADS, or the Northeast Air Defense System department of NORAD, was several days into a semi-annual exercise known as Vigilant Guardian. This meant that our Northeast Air Defense System was fully staffed. In short, key officers were manning the operation battle center, fighter jets were cocked, loaded, and carrying extra gas on board. Lucky for the terrorists none of that mattered on September 11th.

Let me use Flight 11 as an example. American Airlines Flight 11 departed Boston Logan Airport at 7:45 a.m. The last routine communication between ground control and the plane occurred at 8:13 a.m. Between 8:13 and 8:20, Flight 11 became unresponsive to ground control. Additionally, radar indicated that the plane had deviated from its assigned path of flight. Soon thereafter, transponder contact was lost.

Two Flight 11 airline attendants had separately called American Airlines reporting a hijacking, the presence of weapons and the inflictions of injuries upon passengers and crew. At this point it would seem abundantly clear that Flight 11 was an emergency.

And yet, according to NORAD's official timeline, NORAD was not contacted until 20 minutes later at 8:40 a.m. Tragically, the fighter jets were not deployed until 8:52 a.m., a full 32 minutes after loss of contact with Flight 11.

Why was there a delay in the FAA notifying NORAD? Why was there a delay in NORAD's scrambling fighter jets? How is this possible when NEADS was fully staffed with planes at the ready, monitoring our airspace?

Flights 175, 77 and 93 all had this same repeat pattern of delays in notification and delays in scrambling fighter jets, delays that are unimaginable considering a plane had, by this time, already hit the World Trade Center. Even more baffling for us is the fact that fighter jets were not scrambled from the closest Air Force bases.

For example, for the flight that hit the Pentagon, the jets were scrambled from Langley Air Force, in Hampton, Virginia rather than Andrews Air Force Base right outside D.C. As a result, Washington skies remained wholly unprotected on the morning of September 11th.

At 9:41 a.m., one hour and 21 minutes after the first plane was hijack confirmed by NORAD, Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. The fighter jets were still miles away. Why?

So the hijackers' luck had continued. On September 11th both the FAA and NORAD deviated from standard emergency operating procedures. Who were the people that delayed the notification? Have they been questioned?

In addition, the interceptor planes or fighter jets did not fly at their maximum speed. Had the belatedly scrambled fighter jets flown at their maximum speed of engagement, they would have reached New York City and the Pentagon within moments of their deployment, intercepted the hijacked airliners before they could have hit their targets, and undoubtedly saved lives.

The leadership. The acting Joint Chief of Staff on September 11th was General Richard B. Myers. On the morning of September 11th, he was having a routine meeting. The acting Joint Chief of Staff stated that he saw a TV report about a plane hitting the World Trade Center but thought it was a small plane or something like that.

So, he went ahead with his meeting. "Meanwhile, the second World Trade Center was hit by another jet. Nobody informed us of that," Myers said. By the time he came out of this meeting, the Pentagon had been hit.

Whose responsibility was it to relay this emergency to the Joint Chief of Staff? Have they been held accountable for this error? Surely this represents a breakdown in protocol.

The Secretary of Defense was at his desk doing paperwork when Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. As reported, Secretary Rumsfeld felt the building shake, went outside, saw the damage and started helping the injured onto stretchers. After aiding the victims, the Secretary then went to the War Room.

How is it possible that the National Military Command Center, located in the Pentagon and in contact with law enforcement and air-traffic controllers from 8:46 a.m., did not communicate to the Secretary of Defense, also at the Pentagon, about the other hijacked planes, especially the one headed to Washington? How is it that the Secretary of Defense could have remained at his desk until the crash? Whose responsibility is it to relay emergency situations to him?

At 6:15 a.m. on the morning of September 11th, my husband Alan left for work. He drove in to New York City and was at his desk and working at his NASDAQ security-trading position with Cantor Fitzgerald, in Tower 1 of the World Trade Center, by 7:30 a.m.

In contrast, on that morning President Bush was scheduled to read to elementary-school children. Before the President walked into the classroom, NORAD had sufficient information that the plane that hit the World Trade Center was hijacked. At that time they also had knowledge that two other commercial airliners in the air were also hijacked.

It would seem that a national emergency was in progress, yet the President was allowed to enter a classroom full of young children and listen to students read.

Why didn't the Secret Service inform him of this national emergency? When is the President supposed to be notified of everything the agencies know? Why was the President permitted by the Secret Service to remain in the Sarasota elementary school? Was this Secret Service protocol?

In the case of a national emergency, seconds of indecision could cost thousands of lives. And it is precisely for that reason that our government has a whole network of adjuncts and advisors to ensure that these top officials are among the first to be informed and not the last.

Where were these individuals who did not properly inform these top officials? Where was the breakdown in communication? Was it luck? Is it luck that aberrant stock trades were not monitored? Is it luck when 15 visas are awarded based on incomplete forms? Is it luck when airline security screeners allow hijackers to board planes with box cutters and pepper spray? Is it luck when emergency FAA and NORAD protocols are not followed? Is it luck when a national emergency is not reported to top government officials on a timely basis?

To me luck is something that happens once. When you have this repeated pattern of broken protocols, broken laws, broken communication, one cannot still call it luck. If at some point we don't look to hold the individuals accountable for not doing their jobs properly, then how can we ever expect for terrorists to not get lucky again?

And that is why I'm here with all of you today, because we must find the answers as to what happened that day so as to ensure that another September 11th can never happen again.

Commissioners, I implore you to answer our questions. You are the generals in the terrorism fight on our shores. In answering our questions, you have the ability to make this nation a safer place and, in turn, minimize the damage if there is another terrorist attack. And if there is another attack, the next time our systems will be in place and working and luck will not be an issue. Thank you.

Vadhan

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Is Allison Vadhan here yet? She's on the way and she has a statement and we will put her on after the break.

SPEAKER: She's here now, she's right upstairs.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Here she is. All right. You picked your timing very well. Are you all right to go on right now?

MS. VADHAN: I'm all right, yes.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Okay.

MS. VADHAN: Thank you. I apologize.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Thank you very much. Allison Vadhan, Families of Flight 93.

MS. VADHAN: Members of the Commission, Mr. Kean, honored guests, my name is Allison Vadhan and I lost my very young 65-year-old mother, Kristin White Gould, on United Flight 93, the plane that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania while the passengers and crew tried to overcome the hijackers.

I'd like to thank the Commission for inviting me to speak today. I've always had a strong inner faith and I still believe that God doesn't give us what we can't handle. Being here today and your hearing my voice and our voices in place of our loved ones is a privilege.

My mother, a graduate from Cornell University and a medical journalist, preferred to spend her vacation time visiting ancient cities to learn about ancient civilizations. Before I knew that she was flying that day, I had already witnessed the second tower of the World Trade Center explode into an orange fireball and I saw with my own eyes the great black mushroom cloud rise above the New York City skyline, not far from my own home.

I'm sure most Americans today remember the sinking feeling when it was obvious that not only the World Trade Center had come under terrorist attacks but that there were other planes in trouble -- along with fires and explosions in Washington. And then there was news about a plane down in Pennsylvania. Before the day was over, we all knew that this was war.

By the Christmas holidays, we faced the anthrax attacks, the attempted bombing of the plane from Paris to Miami, which was averted to Boston, by Richard Reid, the discovery of an American, John Walker Lind, who was captured as a Taliban rebel in Afghanistan. How many other plans were there? It felt like each day could be the next day for an attack.

Most of us would turn on the TV first thing in the morning to see if the world had changed overnight. Finally, it seemed crystal clear to citizens, as well as governments, that the U.S. is a prized target for al Qaeda. And this could possibly happen again and again and again, whether they actually hit or just miss.

I'm concerned not only about my own three children and if the U.S. will be as strong as it has been in the 20th century. I'm also concerned about what's already been taught to children in Madrassa schools this year, last year, five years ago.

Six days after my mother was killed, our family traveled to Shanksville, Pennsylvania for the memorial services for the families of Flight 93. After the services I went back to my hotel room for some quiet time and when I turned on the TV, a reporter in Pakistan was interviewing 8- and 10-year-old boys at school. Their computer screen savers bounced pictures of Osama bin Laden. We have discovered that there is another generation being trained and raised to become terrorists when they grow up.

I can tell you that forgetting and trying to move on is a survival mechanism and it is part of human nature. The pain of trying to envision what my mother might have been going through and experienced on that plane is so great that it's almost only normal to try to forget about it and think about something else. But trying to forget is an indulgence for any American who saw what we saw.

Al Qaeda and similar cells around the world are training their young ones. If Americans don't prepare for this next generation, we have only ourselves in this room to hold accountable.

I'm concerned about civil liberties as an excuse for not taking action to prevent terrorism. I'm concerned about how many untold cases there are of federal and local agencies not being able to properly investigate a potential terrorist. At the time FBI investigators could not obtain a criminal search warrant to inspect the laptop computer of Zacharias Moussaoui because supervisors in Washington D.C. thought there was no probable cause.

Now that we know our laws for investigating are outdated and no longer appropriate, I'm concerned that we will choose not to fix them in the name of protecting civil liberties, rather than protecting the lives of American civilians.

President Bush effectively made us aware that we are fighting a new kind of war. And if the battlefield is here at home, waged by specific groups from specific areas around the world, in the name of a specific religion, I'm concerned that avoiding racial profiling will supersede preventing further terrorism. And the enemy knows this.

Terrorism is similar to the guerilla warfare we hear about going on in Iraq: Militants pose themselves as ordinary citizens and immigrants here in the United States. They appear so clean cut, they could fit in on any golf course. And they do this to remain undetected until they carry out their terrorist goals. If we're lucky, they're dressed in their customary dress, they're wearing their traditional non-Western clothing.

As long as we allow groups to be protected from racial profiling, how can we win this new war? And after seeing those little boys in the Madrassa schools which are sponsored by Osama bin Laden and the like, our children and grandchildren will, with no uncertainly, face a very dangerous existence, especially if we try to forget and move on.

The people who died on September 11th were the first casualties in this new war. It is our responsibility not to let them die in vain. I hope we learn from our mistakes and prevent our children from having to deal with the problems that their parents and grandparents could have and should have addressed with action and resolve.

Thank you for inviting me and other families to speak today. I believe that we all share the same goal in making our country and our world a safer place. I hope the outcome of the independent Commission is to learn from the past so that history will not repeat itself. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Thank you all very much. This is an extraordinary panel and you have given us a tremendous charge. I might say, in addition to the fact of all the questions that you have given us that we must answer to our satisfaction and the satisfaction of the American people, in addition the families' group, I didn't realize this was appointed somewhat late, but there wouldn't be a Commission if it was not for the work of the victims and the families. And we're all very, very aware of that.

I also want to say, as Chairman, that every single time that this Commission has asked the families to help in any way in the execution of our mission, they have been there, from setting out the mission to helping us get an adequate budget.

I just want to say to you all, as representatives of the families, thank you very, very much, and we look forward to working with you in the future.

At this point, if I could recognize Senator Cleland.

COMMISSIONER CLELAND: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Miss Kleinberg has referred to a meeting of the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was having, at that moment of 9/11. He was having that meeting with me. I was on the Armed Services Committee. And we were talking about America's defenses at the moment.

My understanding of that is at the very moment that we were talking about that, the aide, a lieutenant colonel, was receiving a call from the Pentagon. Basically the message was, as I understand it, New York hit, Washington next.

And that scared one of my secretaries so badly about that moment that the Chairman and I rolled in and watched the second plane hit. And we left the office immediately, but it was ironic that we were talking about defending the country at that very moment. I just wanted to add that for the record.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Thank you, Senator. Senator Gorton?

COMMISSIONER GORTON: Mr. Push, with the exception of some of your co-sufferers from this tragedy, I doubt that anyone in the course of the last 18 months has spent more time or thought on this entire matter than you have.

And in your written and oral testimony, you have several questions that you think it necessary for us to answer. I'd like to know whether or not you have formed any tentative answers to those questions that you'd like to share with us. And let me just do one of them.

Do you have any strong and informed views on whether or not the FBI can be an appropriate counterterrorism agency or whether or not we should have a separate British-type MI-5?

MR. PUSH: It is my opinion that we should have a separate MI-5 type of organization. It appears to me that the whole culture of the FBI is antithetical to the skills that are needed in counterterrorism. The reward system is geared towards people who solve cases rather than prevent terrorist attacks.

And I realize that the director of the FBI is attempting to change that culture, but we haven't got the luxury of time. And I think we should try a different model. Would you like me to mention my views on these others?

COMMISSIONER GORTON: If you'd like to do so. I may comment.

MR. PUSH: Sure.

COMMISSIONER GORTON: I have a friend who is a United States Attorney in one of the districts in Washington who has said to me, not at all facetiously, recently, that he can't get the FBI to investigate bank robberies anymore because they're all looking for, spies and they may very well be inconsistent charges.

MR. PUSH: As far as foreign policy, I think we have to take, I realize that now that we're at war with Iraq is not the right moment to reevaluate our relationship with Saudi Arabia, but I think that we need to reevaluate our relationships with the Middle East.

I think too many governments, particularly Saudi Arabia, but I think this applies to other Middle Eastern governments as well, who play a double game, who pretend to be our allies while secretly, or sometimes not so secretly, turning a blind eye to their citizens, funding terrorism, even the governments themselves setting up newspapers that are blatantly anti-American, anti-Semitic, schools and mosques that provide hatred and violence.

And I think that we need to use the full weight of our -- military action like in Iraq will not always be appropriate, but I think we should use the full weight of our foreign policy, whether it be diplomatic or through foreign aid or whatever to pressure these governments to change until -- I believe that we'll never be safe from Islamic extremism until the Arab Muslim countries begin to experience democracy.

In the case of the Homeland Security Department, I believe that it was done more to appease the American public than to make fundamental change. I think just throwing a lot of different agencies together under a single department in and of itself does not in itself provide a more secure environment. We really have to rethink. And one of the things I've mentioned about people who are still in responsible positions, it's my understanding that the managers who are responsible for the poor performance of aviation security under the FAA have been transferred to responsible positions in the TSA and/or to contractors who work for the TSA. So we changed the label it's operating under, we haven't changed the fundamental problem.

In the case of the 14 agencies, I support the recommendation of the Joint 9/11 Inquiry to have a Director of National Intelligence . I spent most of my time in the private sector. You would never even dream in the private sector having 14 different departments in a company doing the same thing, and nobody is in charge.

And as far as political campaign contributions having an effect on aviation security, I suspect they have. The airlines have always gotten a pass from the government. I know that they make the case that they're absolutely vital to the national interest, and I believe they are, but I believe they're in trouble not because of regulatory requirements but because of poor management.

And I think that they have, they seem to have plenty of money to spend on political campaign contributions and on lawyers and they, before 9/11 and after 9/11, they seem to have successfully evaded many of the requirements that the government has tried to place on them.

And I think that, and this is a broader issue, I'm picking on the airline industry because they're the industry that I think had played a key role in responsibility for 9/11, but this is just the tip of the iceberg, I think, and maybe this is too broad for this Commission to get into, but I think the whole political campaign contribution system in this country is warping the political process. And the problems with the airline industry are just one example of it.

COMMISSIONER FIELDING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a general statement, if I may, thanking this panel. Your stories are very compelling, your advice is good and sound, and obviously you have strengthened our resolve.

I know I speak for all of us, you're obviously one of our best assets. Please, stay with us, please keep giving us guidance, please keep us direct. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Senator Gorelick?

COMMISSIONER GORELICK: Yes, I might just follow up on that. I was very impressed with what both Mary Fetchet and Mindy Kleinberg had to say in terms of the body of knowledge that you have brought to bear on this issue.

And I was struck by the fact that laypeople, with no powers of subpoena, with no access to inside information of any sort, could put together a very powerful set of questions and set of facts that are a roadmap for us. And I would just ask you to briefly describe by what process you have developed the factual basis that you have laid before us today because it is really quite striking.

MS. KLEINBERG: Hours and hours and hours of reading articles, and you know, over the Internet, we e-mailed each other articles. Somewhere in October we became obsessed with everything that was September 11th.

It started with, you know, any article that had anything to do with September 11th we started to pass back and forth. And then, you know, if they had something to do with let's say INS, we started to look up information about the INS. So it's literally 18 months of doing nothing but grieving and reading.

COMMISSIONER GORELICK: Thank you for the reading part, motivated by the grieving, I'm sure.

MS. FETCHET: I think initially we were all just numb. And we were like the general public. And I said to my friends, in fact, you might read an article and say, gee, that's sort of odd, they gave visas to the terrorists. And you know, that's unusual or that's, you know.

So I think that as we progressed, our curiosity took over. And we started reading and really not only putting the articles together but also connecting the dots. And you see, I mean, they had more than enough information to really, if not minimize, completely prevent this from happening.

And the problem is, these agencies are not communicating. They don't have protocol that they have in place or they're not following it. So it's just, I think our curiosity took over and we started drawing conclusions to reading this information.

COMMISSIONER GORELICK: Thank you.

MS. FETCHET: But we're turning it over to you now because we're tired. Now it's your job.

MR. PUSH: And we want to see lots of subpoenas.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Congressman Roemer?

COMMISSIONER ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Having served in Congress and as a member of the Joint Inquiry, I cannot thank all of you enough and the people in the audience enough for your participation in making sure that the Joint Inquiry continued to dig hard and dig deep and get at the facts and put out the starting point for the Commission.

Many of you could have taken your grief and your sorrow and your pain and gone to the sidelines. Instead, just as we see today the pictures out there of your wife or your son or your loved one, you came to every single public hearing that we had on the Joint Inquiry.

And the members of that Joint Inquiry looked out in the audience and saw those faces every single day. And that had a huge impact on that committee, that bipartisan committee of Senators and Congressmen, trying to do their job harder and harder and more effectively every day.

You were instrumental in the creation of the Commission. It would not have happened legislatively, getting through the House and Senate, if it had not been for you. At a time when many Americans don't even take the opportunity to cast a ballot, you folks went out and made the legislative system work. You can take great pride in that.

I hope you will stay involved in this Commission's work. And I hope that you will stay involved in helping us implement recommendations of the Commission. That will be one of the most difficult parts we get to.

And along those lines, Steve, if you want to, I just want to ask you a very quick question. Maybe you don't answer it today, maybe you answer it in six months. And Steve, you may have partially answered it, but maybe you can all take a quick try at it.

What two recommendations would you like to see us pass at the end of the day to make the country a safer place against this fluid, dynamic, very lethal threat of al Qaeda and terrorists?

Steve, I will call on you first. You may have mentioned two of them, the creation of the Director of National Intelligence and an MI-5.

MR. PUSH: Yes, actually I think if I had to pick only two, I would say the Director of National Intelligence and a change in our relationship to the Middle East, both. I mentioned Saudi Arabia, but also I think we have to reexamine our policy towards Israel, as well.

I support Israel, but we've turned a blind eye to the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and all of these things are interconnected. I'm not a blame-America-first advocate. This was the fault of the hijackers, and the hijackers were the fault of a dysfunctional society in the Arab Muslim countries.

Unfortunately, we can't just pin the blame on them because they're killing us. So we have to do whatever we can, use whatever leverage we have to force changes there that will stop them from continuing to create young people who hate us more than they love life itself.

We can build a wall around America, and we will never be able to protect ourselves as long as there are people like that in the world.

MS. FETCHET: I think the two areas I would like to see changes in would be the FBI and the CIA working together. To me it's inexcusable that you have two agencies that are supposed to be protecting our citizens. And they have cultures and territorial wars and they're not communicating or coordinating their efforts.

I think the second thing is immigration. I think we really do not know who is living in this country. I was amazed to hear -- the learning curve for all of us has been beyond straight up -- but when I sat in the Joint Intelligence hearings and I heard that the watch list only goes one way, that doesn't make sense to me. And I can't understand how we're not monitoring people coming and going. So I think those are the two areas.

And one other thing I'd like to include is just to mention how thankful we are for the work that the Joint Intelligence Committee did. They really, worked hard. I would like you to follow some of their recommendations.

They were very frustrated with people not showing up for testimony, people not complying with subpoenas, and so, I've forgotten who mentioned it to us, but they said subpoena early and often, and that's another recommendation that I would have, is make that list and get started.

MS. KLEINBERG: You know, I agree with Mary and Steve. I also think that there's a part about accountability that we, as citizens, we can't hold the Director of Central Intelligence accountable or the people that work for him or the FBI, we're not in charge of hiring or firing them.

And there's no way, there's no report card, you know, it's a matter of national security. So Congressional oversight becomes extremely important. And you know, our ability to, as Americans, to get the story out so that we know who's accountable and we know that we could use our votes to ensure this accountability. That's one of them.

And the other is, I think there should be full disclosure for public officials of any of their business interests. You know, we have talked a lot about conflicts on this Commission. And you know, the onus is on you to rise above those conflicts.

And I'm sure that you will be able to do that when it is this important of a job, but I think, you know, it's another area that has to be looked at that when we put people into office, whether it's a Congressman or a Senator or a President, we have to take a look at what their business interests are so that there are no conflicts there either.

MS. VADHAN: Again, I'll just reiterate what I have said in my statement. I think we need to take a good look at the laws, how we investigate possible suspects, how we investigate, how we keep track of immigrants, and also take a look at, take a good hard look at what we do know about September 11th and the people who were involved with conspiring the terrorist attacks and finding out why we decided to stop investigating or stop following one of the hijackers in the middle of the year, right before September 11th, we just decided to stop following him.

We had been on his tail for over a year, and for some unknown reason, we just don't know, we decided to stop watching him. And we didn't hear about him until he ended up on the plane, on Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania.

CHAIRMAN KEAN: Are there anymore questions from the Commissioners? If not, you are extraordinary people. Thank you so very much for your testimony. I believe we're running late, not unexpectedly, but I would ask, therefore, if we could hold our break to 45 minutes. Let's catch our 15 minutes that way, if we could be back here in 45 minutes. Thank you all very much.

(45-minute recess)

The Attackers, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism Policy

Main article: 9/11 Commission Hearing:First hearing transcript:The Attackers