Seeking Answers in the 9/11 Report

Re “9/11 Report Assails Failures,” July 23: I do not blame the Bush administration for the national security failure of Sept. 11. Everyone was asleep at the switch, and a different administration wouldn’t have -- and didn’t -- do any better.

The role of the Bush administration in the intelligence failure that misled us into the war on Iraq is less clear, but almost beside a more fundamental point, which is that President Bush cannot portray himself as a victim of his own government.

He and his administration need to be held accountable for these two catastrophic failures that occurred on his watch. Otherwise, there would be a major disconnect between the governing process and the electoral process.

David Hinden

Los Angeles

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I’m sick and tired of reading articles blaming Bush for everything from the attack on the twin towers to the war on Iraq. He had been president for only eight months and 11 days when Sept. 11 occurred. Clinton had been in charge for eight years just before that. How can we blame Bush for the intelligence failures?

We were all convinced that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. If the war on Iraq was a mistake, why can’t we all admit that the United States made a mistake -- not just Bush?

If we don’t stop this bickering, harassing and blaming, we won’t have to worry about the terrorists destroying us; we will destroy ourselves.

Donald K. Wake

Rancho Cucamonga

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With its almost exclusive focus on intelligence and counter-terrorism in preventing attacks like those of Sept. 11, the commission’s report sadly misses some very important points: For more than half a century, our one-sided policy on Israel has destroyed or disrupted millions of Palestinian lives and alienated us from the entire Arab world.

We have enabled the shah of Iran and Hussein to terrorize their own populations as well as their neighbors, simply because we thought it was in our own best interests to do so.

Now, we sit and wonder how the slaughter of 3,000 innocent Americans on Sept. 11 might have been prevented. Unpopular though it might be, the answer seems obvious: Not better intelligence and not better counter-terrorism, but better U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Mark C. Eades

Berkeley

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The most disturbing thing that has been revealed by the commission report is that our government, which is theoretically representative of America in general, does not grasp or appreciate the true nature of our enemies, or our enemies’ inner sentiments toward us, or to what ends the enemies will go to maintain and even expand their way of life, which is in direct opposition to almost everything we value as free thinkers.

This is not helped by the fact that our enemies are not burdened by the legal and political constraints that hinder us from responding to them in the most effective manner. There is a time for patience and diplomacy, and there is a time for absolutely destructive power. My only fear is that we still don’t know which to use and when. For that failing, we will pay.

Arthur Saginian

Saugus

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If, as commission Chairman Thomas Kean says, “an attack of even greater magnitude is now possible and even probable -- we do not have the luxury of time,” then why is Congress not convening a special session to deal with this issue instead of taking its summer vacation?

Christina Waldeck

Torrance