by Stephanie Griffith
WASHINGTON, July 21 (AFP) - A bipartisan US commission pins the blame for the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on a broad array of lapses by federal and local law enforcement officials and intelligence agencies, in its final report to be released Thursday.
Drafted after a nearly two-year-long investigation, the 600-page document was meant to be a wake-up call for US officials -- explaining not only the circumstances leading up to the terror strikes, but pointing out continued vulnerabilities and making an urgent case for sweeping reforms.
The 600-page document by the bipartisan National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States is expected to detail numerous failures in the US security network which allowed al-Qaeda to successfully carry out the attacks that killed some 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
While the document stops short of saying the attacks could have been prevented, it nevertheless lists a number of missed opportunities to avert them, according to press reports.
Members of the 10-member panel, comprised by five Democrats and five Republicans, reached their conclusions unanimously -- an achievement after months of sometimes partisan bickering in the group.
"I hope that what we`ll take from that unanimity ... a sense of urgency," said Representative Bob Menendez after being briefed by the panel`s chair and vice-chair on its findings.
"I think to some degree we may have lost that sense of urgency. And I think the report will be a catalyst for that," the New Jersey Democrat said at a press conference Wednesday.
Commissioners found that the administrations of President George W. Bush and predecessor Bill Clinton did not adequately take into account the threat posed by al-Qaeda.
The panel is expected to elaborate on an earlier finding that there was no collaborative relationship between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein -- a politically embarrassing conclusion for the Bush administration, which heavily based its case for going to war against Iraq on Baghdad`s alleged cooperation with the militant Islamist group.
The commission, according to media reports, also was to call for the creation of a cabinet-level "czar" who would coordinate intelligence-gathering operations run by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Council, the Pentagon and other parts of the US government.
In reaching their conclusions, commissioners interviewed thousands of witnesses, including Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and their predecessors, Clinton and Vice President Al Gore. Panel members also pored over some two million pages of classified and unclassified documents.
US lawmakers on Wednesday mulled the political implications of the document, which is being released less than four months before the presidential election, rather than last spring, as originally planned.
"I think the hardest job of the commission in the next 72 hours is to keep focused on what this report`s all about, rather than ... looking for a line here and a line there to make this totally political," Republican Representative Roy Blunt told CNN television.
With lawmakers focused on the coming presidential and legislative elections, they "won`t be able to really deal with the report in a meaningful way until we get into the next legislative year," Blunt said.
The chairman and vice chairman of the panel briefed lawmakers in the US Senate about the report on Wednesday, after briefing members of the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
A bipartisan group of senators on Tuesday introduced legislation to create a cabinet-level post to oversee US intelligence -- also expected to be one of the commission`s key recommendations.
"The goal is to make sure that we have the best possible intelligence community under the best and strongest leadership," said US Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, who is the chief sponsor of the bill.
"The bottom line is, leading the United States` intelligence community is a full-time position, and if it`s to be done right, we cannot expect the person holding that responsibility to run a separate agency simultaneously," Feinstein said.