by Stephanie Griffith
WASHINGTON, July 23 (AFP) - Like patients analyzing a Rorschach test, readers of the final report by the September 11 Commission were able to find support for their individual views on the reasons and remedies for the 2001 terror attacks.
President George W. Bush latched on to the panel's finding Thursday that US security lapses were "institutional" rather than a failure of his particular administration.
The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, exulted that the report appeared to exonerate his kingdom of complicity in the plot, even though the vast majority of the hijackers who commandeered the planes used in the attacks were of Saudi origin.
And opposition Democrats in the Republican-controlled US Congress insisted that Thursday's report by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States underscored Republican intransigence on matters of national security.
"We know that our ports and our waterways and our borders are not adequately protected. We know that the plutonium and the uranium that exist out there in the world that makes us vulnerable," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
"Why is this not a priority for the Republicans? Why is this not a priority for the President of the United States?"
For their part, Republicans made it clear that they believed the security breakdowns which allowed the attacks to take place resulted from failed policies carried out during Democratic president Bill Clinton's tenure in the White House.
"During the 1990s, America's intelligence capacity was crippled, and our international credibility was undermined by our refusal to take the terrorist threat seriously enough," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said.
"The question our nation now faces is whether we want to return to the '90s law enforcement approach to terror or whether we want to reaffirm our commitment to fight and win the war on terror," the Texas Republican said.
Earlier Thursday, Democrats and Republicans had tempered their comments, praising the committee's Herculean achievements on compiling and analyzing a mountain of evidence over nearly two years, and lauding the evenhanded tone of the final document.
"President Clinton is not to blame for these attacks. President Bush is not to blame for these attacks -- al-Qaeda is to blame for these attacks," House Speaker Dennis Hastert said, summing up what in his opinion was the bottom line of the report.
"We're at war with these religious fanatics and those terrorist states that support them. They hate Americans and they want to kill us," Hastert said.
But comity yielded over the course of the day to political wrangling, led by Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry who, taking a swipe at Bush, said the Republican president had not done nearly enough to combat terror since the al-Qaeda attacks.
"We can do better," Kerry said. "We must do better and there is an urgency about us doing better."
Bush's presidential campaign wasted no time in firing back.
"The Commission's report makes the case for the policies that President Bush has been pursuing in the war on terror and eliminates any doubt that the best defense against the threat of global terror is a strong offense," the campaign said in a statement.
Republicans blamed the commission for releasing its report in summer, rather than in spring, as originallyy planned, saying any congressional action as a result, will likely have to wait until after November's election.
Democrats however, blamed the delays on the White House, which originally opposed the commission's creation and which was not always forthcoming in making documents and witnesses available, they said.
Other comments on the report ranged from high praise for the panel's exhaustive efforts, to outrage over perceived flaws and oversights in the document.
"They have done an incredible job," said New York Senator Chuck Schumer, whose state, site of the destroyed World Trade Center twin towers, was hardest hit in the terror attacks nearly three years ago.
His Senate colleague, Hillary Clinton, praised the commissioners, called the report "a great testimony to the their willingness to search hard for the truth, to get at the facts."
The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Pat Roberts, said the report was spot-on in its finding that US intelligence officials failed to think outside the box in envisioning the kinds of attacks terrorists might devise.
But critics were just as emphatic in debunking the report. Kyle Hence, co-founder of 9/11 Citizens Watch, called the document "a whitewash ... a farce, an out-and-out cover up, and a shameful, colossal spin job."
He added that the group intended to issue its own analysis, detailing its view of how the 9/11 attacks were carried out.
Besides praising the report as a useful analysys of events before and after the attacks, the leading US dailies on Friday welcomed the recommendations it makes and the debate it has kindled on the future of the war on terrorism.