NEW YORK, July 22 (AFP) - For those who lost loved ones in the September 11 attacks, Thursday's release of the report by the commission investigating the deadly strikes was at once eagerly anticipated and excruciatingly painful.
"The families are not looking for people to blame, but they want to have answers, as many as they can, on what happened to their loved ones," said lawyer John Jeannopoulos, whose Trial Lawyers Care group has helped some 1,700 families.
"What they hope is that it's not going to happen again. It's a bit like the Holocaust survivors," Jeannopoulos said.
Monica Gabrielle, who lost her husband, an insurance agent, in the attack on the World Trade Center, traveled to Washington to hear the commission's findings.
"It's hard; it's been a long road. It's the end of phase one. Phase two is the implementation" of the recommendations, including better intelligence gathering and better cooperation among government agencies, she said.
"You have to lobby Congress. You have to lobby the elected officials to make sure that the job is done," she added. "We have to make sure that the recommendations are not left on dusty shelves and that they are implemented."
Stephen Push also lost his spouse in the attacks.
"I'm very pleased. They had unprecedented access to classified documents," he said, noting that he was particularly pleased with the proposal to create a new national intelligence director.
Georg McNeely, a 44-year-old art dealer, seemed to have a mixed reaction to the 567-page report, which was compiled following a two-year investigation.
"They got rid of (former CIA director George) Tenet, so I think that in some way they are hearing, but I don't know in which way the report will help to address the problem," McNeely said.
"Is the city still traumatized? Absolutely," Jeannopoulos said. "Now, when there's a plane flying over my head, I look up and wonder. Also, when you leave your house, you don't want to leave it angry with your family, because you don't know what may happen. You feel more humanity, more concern for each other."
He said the victims are now "connected to each other, like in Normandy in 1944 -- a band of brothers caught in a horrific event."
Bill Doyle, who lost his son Joseph in the attacks, has since created an online network for victims' families to keep in touch with one another.
"It's the end of the first chapter," he said, noting that, going forward, he will "probably do what I've been doing all along, helping as many families as I can, and assisting the 9/11 commission, advocating for the changes they're recommending."
Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks in 2001, including 2,749 in New York.