Terrorists run, as Bush, Congress crawl, say 9/11 critics

WASHINGTON— George W. Bush’s administration and the U. S. Congress are “ moving at a crawl” against nimble terrorists, leaving the country vulnerable more than four years after the 2001 attacks, the former Sept. 11 Commission said in a scathing final report yesterday. The six Republicans and six Democrats, who wrote the seminal 2004 analysis of what went wrong before and after the hijacked plane attacks killed about 3,000 in America, criticized anti- terrorism efforts ranging from emergency communications and disaster response to lack of controls on weapons of mass destruction.

“ We believe that the terrorists will strike again. So does every responsible expert that we have talked to,” Thomas Kean, who chaired the commission, told a news conference.

“ Four years after 9/ 11, we are not as safe as we could be and that is unacceptable,” said Kean, a Republican and former governor of New Jersey. “ While the terrorists are learning and adapting, our government is still moving at a crawl.”

Their “report card” reviews how 41 commission recommendations were implemented. They give the government five failing grades of F, including one for inadequate emergency communications, noting police, firefighters, emergency staff still don’t have a dedicated radio spectrum. Other marks were 12 Ds, 9 Cs, two “ incompletes,” and just one top mark, A- minus for counter- terrorist financing.