Terry Everett, July 26, 2004

Last week, the long-awaited exhaustive report into the 9/11 intelligence failures was released by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States (9/11 Commission). Its details are still being scrutinized by both official Washington and the American people. While it is gripping reading, many of its basic conclusions have already been reached by earlier Congressional panel reviews of the 9/11 attacks.

The 567-page 9/11 Commission report is the most in-depth accounting to be made public into the events leading up to and following that tragic day in September, 2001. It made clear that Al Qaeda was responsible for the attacks and that for over a decade the government failed to adapt to the threat of terrorism, enabling the terrorists to exploit "deep institutional failings." Furthermore, it faulted the intelligence community and official Washington for not working together to identify and prevent terrorist threats.

There is no "smoking gun" in the 9/11 Commission's report. It is quite clear in its finding that the September 11 attacks could not reasonably have been prevented and that decisions made prior to 9/11 need to be considered in light of the events of that time. It notes that neither the Clinton nor Bush administration had direct cause to wage war against terrorist sponsors prior to 9/11 given the facts they knew. "Since we believe that both President Clinton and President Bush were genuinely concerned about the danger posed by al Qaeda, approaches involving more direct intervention against the sanctuary in Afghanistan must have seemed - if they were considered at all - to be disproportionate to the threat," the report said.

One aspect of the 9/11 Commission report which has generated much interest is the criticism it levels at Congress for failing to provide proper oversight over America's intelligence community. As a member of the House Intelligence and Armed Services committees, I would agree that Congress should have done more. I believe that Congress needs to address a major flaw - the decades' old government restrictions on who the CIA and other U.S. agencies can recruit for human intelligence. These limitations on human intelligence activities had a direct relation to the decline in our human intelligence capability.

The 9/11 Committee's report also makes the case for many policies the Bush Administration and Congress have already put into place since 2001. These include holding terrorist groups and countries that sponsor them accountable, creating the Department of Homeland Security and bringing unprecedented focus and resources to domestic security, transforming the mission of the FBI to one of terrorist act prevention as well as investigation, dramatically increasing airline and other transportation security, and breaking down the wall between intelligence and domestic law enforcement to locate terror cells and shut them down.

Significant steps have already been taken to protect the homeland by taking the fight to the terrorists on their home turf. The 9/11 Commission's report, when added to the earlier U.S.-House and Senate intelligence reports, is a valuable foundation upon which Congress and the Bush Administration can further fine tune anti-terror efforts.

While the 9/11 Commission report notes there may be no way to prevent all terrorist attacks against Americans everywhere, Congress and the Administration are seeking to minimize the risk of such attacks. For sure, it will be a long-term battle and every American needs to be vigilant.

Congressman Terry Everett, a Republican, represents Alabama's Second Congressional District, which includes the state capitol, Montgomery.