The
National Commission On Terrorist Attacks Upon The United
States
Press Conference Statement
Chairman Joe Lieberman
December 20, 2001
Good afternoon and thank you all for coming.
Today, Senator McCain and I are introducing legislation
that we hope will answer the lingering question so many
Americans have been asking ourselves since the unparalleled
death and destruction that occurred on September 11.
How could such attacks have happened to us? And what could we have done to prevent them?
Rarely in our history have events left the broad and
indelible marks of pain and sorrow that the attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon have caused.
In the last century, two tragedies that
seem comparable in their effect on the collective
American psyche - the attack on Pearl Harbor and the
assassination of President Kennedy - raised similarly
difficult questions. For example, why had our Navy been caught unawares at Pearl
Harbor? And who
was Lee Harvey Oswald and what motives did he have to kill our
35th president?
In both cases, special commissions were established to
look back to try to answer these critical questions.
That’s what Senator McCain and I are proposing with
regard to the attacks on America of September 11.
The legislation we are introducing today would create a
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United
States that would, as the bill says, “make a full and complete accounting of the circumstances
surrounding the attacks, and the extent of the United States'
preparedness for, and response to, the attacks.”
In other words, how could such a plan - using airplanes
as weapons of mass destruction - be so successful in achieving
its deadly goals? Were opportunities missed to prevent the destruction?
And what additional steps should be taken now to
prevent any future attacks?
To be successful, this Commission
must have time, a top level staff, ample investigatory
powers, and adequate funding - all of which we believe we have
provided for. There
will be 14 members - four to be appointed by the president, 10
by Congressional committee chairs. No more than seven members
may be of the same party.
We want this commission to be non partisan and
independent. It
must be a hunt for the truth, not a witch hunt. The initial weeks and months after September 11 were -
understandably and appropriately -preoccupied with mourning
and healing, and then with the war on terrorism.
But since the first stage of the war is now drawing to
a close with the defeat of the Taliban - and with many
perplexing questions left unanswered - this is the right time
to begin in earnest the process of finding answers to our
questions.
Determining the causes and circumstances of the terrorist
attacks will ensure that those who lost their lives on this
second American “day of infamy” did not die in vain.
The commission we propose will not only pay tribute to
the victims but ensure that their survivors, and all Americans
can be secure in the knowledge that their government is
doing everything within its power to protect their lives and
liberties. |