9/11 Commission Urged to Find Answers

World Trade Center survivors, family members and rescuers on Monday urged the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to demand accountability so that future tragedies can be averted.

“I think this commission should point fingers.... There are responsible people who failed us on 9/11,” Stephen Push testified on the opening day of a two-day hearing. Push’s wife, Lisa, was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon.

“There has been a failure of leadership in this country ... that cuts across decades,” added Push, who co-founded a group that represents 1,500 relatives of victims.

“We deserve answers,” said Mary Fetchet, whose 24-year-old son Brad, an equity trader, was killed in the attacks on the twin towers. She played a recording of Brad’s last phone call from the south tower, during which he assured her he was OK. He ended the brief message with the words, “Love you.”

“What were the systematic failures? Who should be held accountable?” Fetchet demanded, expressing “very deep concern about the slow progress of the commission” created by Congress last fall.

The mandate of the 10-member panel is to find out “why things happened ... and what could have been done to avert this tragedy,” said chairman Thomas H. Kean, a former governor of New Jersey. Its creation followed a congressional inquiry last year into intelligence failures that contributed to the attacks.

The commission, which is to complete its work by May 2004, has broad power to look into such areas as law enforcement, immigration, diplomacy, the flow of assets to terrorist groups, commercial aviation and intelligence agencies’ practices relating to Sept. 11.

“The American people want the answers to so many questions,” Kean said. “They want to know how such a dastardly attack could succeed.... They want to be sure their loved ones did not die in vain.”

Added former Indiana Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, vice chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States:

“Eighteen months after that terrible day, we have no comprehensive analysis of what happened.”

New York Gov. George Pataki, who said the strength of family members “still inspires me,” and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg also testified before the panel.

Bloomberg urged the group to recommend to Congress that homeland security funds be allocated to cities on the basis of risk analysis and vulnerability to attack.

“Any other formula defies logic and makes a mockery of the country’s counter-terrorism efforts,” the mayor said.

“New York City has been targeted four times by terrorists, and the federal government cannot ignore our symbolic value.... To argue most other cities have comparable threats is ridiculous.”

Bloomberg said that New York is estimated to receive $11 million out of $566 million from the latest distribution of federal homeland security funds.

“At some point, politics has to give way to practicality,” Bloomberg said. “If we distributed moneys for the military this way, our troops in Iraq would have bows and arrows.”

Bloomberg also called on the commission to recommend federal legislation to protect the city from lawsuits stemming from the cleanup at the twin towers site.

“Personal injury claims regarding alleged long-term health damage could bankrupt our city over the next 20 years,” the mayor warned.

And Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told panel members that it takes too long for the federal government to issue security clearances to local law enforcement officers dealing with terrorism.

He said intelligence sometimes is withheld by the federal government because of possible prosecution of criminal cases, which can hamper prevention at a local level.

It was the testimony by family members about the death of relatives, however, that visibly hit home, moving some commission members to fight back tears.

“You are now guardians of that horrible day,” said Lee Ielpi, a former New York City firefighter who searched the trade center site for nine months until the body of his son Jonathan -- also a firefighter -- was found.