by Stephanie Griffith
WASHINGTON, July 22 (AFP) - Reactions to the final report Thursday of a US inquiry into the September 11 terror attacks ranged from high praise for the panel's exhaustive efforts, to outrage over perceived flaws and oversights in the document.
On the floor of the US Senate, Democrats praised the commissioners as heroes who had pulled off a monumental task in minutely documenting how the attacks were carried out, and then providing practicable, forward-thinking recommendations.
"They have done an incredible job," said New York Senator Chuck Schumer, whose state, site of the World Trade Center twin towers, was hardest hit in the terror attacks nearly three years ago.
"In this town (Washington) racked by partisanship, to come up with bipartisan recommendations is an amazing accomplishment in itself," Schumer said.
"But when you look at what the recommendations are and the thoroughness with which the commission investigated the mistakes that were made in the past, the report assumes an even greater magnitude," he said.
The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee also praised the nearly 600-page document as being spot-on in its findings that US intelligence officials failed to think outside the box in envisioning the kinds of attacks terrorists might devise.
Senator Pat Roberts also told CNN television that it was to the bipartisan commission's great credit that the report succeeded in appearing even-handed.
"The most important thing about this report, it doesn't look in the rearview mirror and point fingers of blame. It gets on beyond that and makes recommendations," added Roberts, whose intelligence committee earlier this month issued its own report on flawed US intelligence, focusing on events leading up to the US-led invasion of Iraq.
But critics were emphatic in debunking the report. Kyle Hence, co-founder of 9/11 Citizens Watch, criticized a "catalogue of compromises, flawed premises, conflicts of interest, unanswered questions, neglected areas of inquiry and ignored whistleblowers" in the report.
"The report being released today by this so-called independent commission cannot possibly be deemed definitive or authoritative as an account for the events of September 11th -- not by any stretch of the imagination," Hence told a Washington press conference.
He added that the group intended to issue its own analysis detailing its view of how the 9/11 attacks were carried out.
Others responding to the document Thursday focused on the way forward now that the commission's work is finally finished.
Democratic lawmaker Sheila Jackson Lee told a press conference that Congress should now turn its full attention to the panel's recommendations, including the finding that a director is needed to coordinate the disparate elements of America's unwieldy intelligence network.
"The question of whether or not we have a czar, a director ... that coordinates intelligence, I think, is key," Jackson Lee told a Capitol Hill press conference after being briefed earlier Thursday, along with other lawmakers, by top officials from the commission.
"One of the major emphases in this commission's report was the fact that our intelligence system is not working," she said.
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the Democrats' apparent presidential candidate, used the report's unveiling as an opportunity to take a swipe at Republican US President George W. Bush, his opponent in November's presidential election.
He said the White House had not done nearly enough since the al-Qaeda attacks to combat terror.
"This report carries a simple message for all of America, about the security of all Americans: We can do better," Kerry said. "We must do better and there is an urgency about us doing better."
For his part, Bush vowed that his administration would do everything in its power to safeguard the country.
Speaking after being briefed on the report at the White House by the national commission's top officials, the president said they recognized there was a still a threat of terror attacks hovering over the United States and vowed that "if the government needs to act, we will.
"There is still a threat," Bush told reporters in the White House Rose Garden.
"We in the government have an obligation to do everything in our power to safeguard the American people."