NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES

Twelfth Public Hearing

Thursday, June 17, 2004

Washington, D.C.
NTSB Conference Center

CHAIRED BY: THOMAS H. KEAN

PANEL I:

STAFF STATEMENT NO. 17: IMPROVISING A HOMELAND DEFENSE

PANEL II:

GENERAL RICHARD MYERS, USAF, CHARIMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

ADMIRAL (SELECT) CHARLES JOSEPH LEIDIG, USN, COMMANDANT OF MIDSHIPMEN, UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY

GENERAL RALPH E. EBERHART, USAF, COMMANDER, NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND(NORAD) AND UNITED STATES NORTHERN COMMAND

MAJOR GENERAL LARRY ARNOLD, USAF (RET.), FORMER COMMANDER, CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES NORAD REGION (CONR)

PANEL III:

MONTE BELGER, FORMER ACTING DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION

JEFF GRIFFITH, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION

JOHN WHITE, FORMER FACILITY MANAGER, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS COMMAND CENTER, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION

BENEDICT SLINEY, OPERATIONS MANAGER, NEW YORK TERMINAL RADAR APPROACH CONTROL, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION

I'd like to return to Flight 93 for a moment, if I might -- 93 is certainly headed towards Washington, D.C. The speculation between al Qaeda and terrorists from our Staff Statements yesterday are that the likely targets are the United States Capitol or the White House. The FAA finds out that this plane has been hijacked, it's the last of the four. And according to the Staff Statement today, Boston Center, at about 9:16 -- and I think Commissioner Gorelick started to ask this question and asked it, I believe, to Mr. White -- Boston Center strongly suggests or recommends that the warning be given to harden the cockpits, to try to make sure that more of these hijackings might not be able to take place if you can protect the pilots and protect the plane from being taken over.

I know, Mr. White, you gave an answer to Commissioner Gorelick's question. You were on the phone in a conference call. I'd like to direct the question to Mr. Sliney. Mr. Sliney, you were on the floor, walking around talking to people. What's your firsthand knowledge of how this was handled between 9:16, when Boston Center recommends this, and the 12 critical minutes until 9:28, when 93 is actually taken over?

MR. SLINEY: I can say that I was not made aware of such a request. The -- we had divided the responsibilities in the command center that day between the staff and the operational elements. And my instructions were to concentrate on the operational elements. As such, every individual in the operational aspect of that facility reported to me any event or information that was given to them. That information was not given to me on that day, making a recommendation to increase the security in the cockpit.

MR. ROEMER: So, you never heard any discussion of this potential warning on the floor at all to harden the -- where does it go then, Mr. White, from Boston, who makes this, and we have this in our Staff Statement, to you, and to the floor?

MR. WHITE: I'm not -- as I said before, I wasn't aware of the call. I would be very curious as to who Boston Center called. It would help me more if I knew who they talked to.

MR. ROEMER: We have evidence that they called Ellen King, one of the floor managers.

MR. SLINEY: Well, on that day, if I may be permitted, on that day, that would have gone into my phone, at my desk. I did -- Ellen King took over those duties for me on that day, a very competent individual. Where that went from there, that may have gone out of the facility at that level -- in other words, those functions that the staff were handling, but it did not come to the operational elements. John was in the operational aspect of that facility that day.

MR. ROEMER: So, when did Ellen King take over?

MR. SLINEY: Take over?

MR. ROEMER: You said she --

MR. SLINEY: She -- yes, the -- earlier in the day, the facility manager, who was another individual, indicated that we should split the responsibilities this way, that I would handle the organizational elements, and that she would organize the staff to handle my other duties, which included manning that desk and that telephone. Ellen King was put in that position. I had little or no contact with Ellen King, nor the rest of the staff elements, for the balance of that day.

MR. ROEMER: So, could Ellen King on her own have done one of two things with the information -- not done anything, (A), or (B), tried to task the carriers or the regional centers to directly get the cockpits and the airlines informed that this was a danger out there in the system. We already had three hijacked airliners. Let's at least try to protect those that are still up in the air as we're trying to get them to land.

MR. SLINEY: She's as I indicated, a very competent individual. I would find it hard to believe that she did not pass that information on somewhere. It did not get passed to me as -- on the floor.

MR. ROEMER: But there are two options for her to pass it on, correct?

MR. SLINEY: She could go to headquarters or directly to the airlines. At that point, we're saying 9:16?

MR. ROEMER: Yes.

MR. SLINEY: We had initiated on the floor a conference, communication conference that kept everyone in the nation, as far as I know -- air traffic control nation -- informed of all aspects of the events then transpiring. I was not informed, and I do not know whether that information was given on that net. There was another net, I learned later, that was going on -- it may have been passed on that one. But I think Ellen King would be the one to ask.

MR. ROEMER: I think we've had conversations with her. We certainly wanted to talk to both Mr. White and Mr. Sliney, you know, and following up with the both of you on that as well, and we'll do more follow-up with Ellen King as well. It just seems to me that those 12 critical minutes were a real opportunity to potentially do something about that fourth flight. It was left in the courageous hands of those people to take that flight down.

Thank you.

MR. KEAN: Secretary Lehman.

MR. LEHMAN: Thank you. I'd like to clear up a couple of possible misconceptions here. First, that, Mr. Belger, you were not the acting administrator on 9/11, you were the acting deputy administrator, that Jane Garvey, the administrator, was there at headquarters and was in charge. Is that correct?

MR. BELGER: Yes sir. That is correct.

MR. LEHMAN: And a second misconception I am sure was unintentional by my colleague, Commissioner Gorelick, that if only the White House had cut you in on the intelligence of the threats of hijackings that you would have acted differently. In fact, the White House did ensure that FAA headquarters did get that intelligence, in fact, all of the intelligence that was referred to in the August 6th memorandum. And our staff has verified this, that Mr. Bono, the head of your security and intelligence, had received all of that, and had sent it forward, and that Ms. Garvey's assistant filtered it out. In fact, she didn't even have clearance for it. And that at no time was a request made for direct briefings on these matters in that period leading up to 9/11.

So, I think, in fact, if there's one real unescapable (sic) failure -- and I'm not talking about you personally here -- it is the failure of the performance of the headquarters of FAA that is very identifiable. In our hearings a year ago, we had testimony that the administrator never heard of any of these possibilities, never heard that there were reports that hijackings in the United States, potentially using aircraft as missiles, had been made and were currently being discussed. Never heard that four-inch knives, for instance, could be a threat and kept them permissible. Never heard that the airlines were not conforming to directives to keep cockpit doors locked and other security issues.

And, on the day itself, the testimony of witnesses, and you heard our report this morning, where FAA had what is to me a surprisingly hierarchal and centralized set of protocols where everything had to be cleared upstairs ultimately to headquarters, when it got to headquarters, it seemed to fall into a black hole. And during that day, there was virtually no -- until you made the decision after all of the crashes to lock-down everybody, which was very decisive and very effectively carried -- up to that point, it was a black hole. There was no notification of multiple hijackings, which witnesses said was because they had reported and asked for it up to headquarters, nothing came out. There was no notification of the military on 93. There was no direct communication with NORAD from headquarters, even though headquarters had centralized the decision-making. The communications with NMCC, which you have said was where the focus of headquarters was, was never established during the critical period. There was never any attention paid to the secure communications because you had STU-2 in -- or the administrator had a STU-2, and NMCC and everybody else had STU-3. It had never been upgraded. Nobody took the common sense provision, since they couldn't get through, to pick up the telephone or go down into the pay phone and call the NMCC while all this was going on.

So, I'm not blaming this on you personally. You were only the acting deputy. But I'd like your view now, since you're no longer there. Can you tell us that these fairly gross shortcomings in the management of the headquarters of FAA have been corrected?

MR. BELGER: Yes, they have. I'd like to expand.

First of all, on that day, just a couple of thoughts in terms of your remarks. As I said before, the National Military Command Center was entered into the hijacking at 9:20 in the morning. That net's there for everybody to listen, real-time, to hear what's going on. So -- I mean, that's just a fact.

Secondly, I don't know about the efforts that the NMCC made to make secure communication calls with the FAA. The FAA has the latest communication capability. I don't know who they called, but our intelligence folks were right there next to the operations center, and they have the latest equipment. So, I'm frustrated by that because I just don't know who they called or what that -- what that specific situation was.

Now, I can tell you that subsequent to 9/11, your specific questions, a great deal of effort was put into improving the communication and the decision-making capability between the FAA and the military, specifically directly to NORAD. I believe it is no longer the FAA's protocol for everything to come to the headquarters and go from the headquarters to NMCC. I think there's a lot more flexibility and accountability and expectation that things will go directly to NORAD now, as Mr. Sliney said.

So, those things have been corrected. There is a -- there are dedicated phone lines from the FAA field facilities to NORAD. There's this 24-hour open communication net so that all the federal agencies -- they've got to listen, they've got to be there -- but it's there for everybody to hear the information at the same time.

MR. LEHMAN: Thank you. I have one last question, not directly related to that day, but to the pattern of toothlessness that came out of our staff investigations that contributed over many years to the laxity in air travel security, for which FAA was responsible. Do you believe that FAA has enough enforcement clout to enforce the safety of flights and against the kinds of threats we have today?

MR. BELGER: Well, I mean, the accurate answer to your question today is that security responsibility was transferred to TSA, so FAA does not have the aviation security responsibility today that it did on September 11th.

MR. LEHMAN: Including aboard the aircraft, aircraft internal security and so forth?

MR. BELGER: Yes sir. The airline security requirements, the airport security requirements, the inspection capability to ensure that those requirements are being met was transferred to the TSA. The FAA retains some of the responsibility to approve training programs and other things that affect the safety of flights, but the security responsibilities were transferred.

MR. LEHMAN: Are you comfortable with -- with that interface now, that nothing is falling between the cracks? Do you think it should stay in TSA?

MR. BELGER: Well, I -- TSA certainly has the capability to meet their mandates. I'll just say what I said in my opening statement. I'm a little bit concerned about the capability in today's very complex world between TSA, DOD, FAA, and the FBI, who's still a player, and I just -- those -- those protocols need to be exercised very, very frequently.

MR. LEHMAN: Thank you. That's a very helpful recommendation, and I appreciate your forthcoming testimony.

MR. BELGER: Thank you.

MR. KEAN: Senator Kerrey.

MR. KERREY: Well, first of all let me say I think this is a situation, very much like Secretary Lehman just said, where at the local level it was -- people responded with great heroism and took action that was appropriate under the circumstances, way beyond what most of us would have been able to do, including being able to get 4,500 airplanes out of the air without a single incident. So, New York, Boston are clearly the ones that we've looked at. You guys did a fabulous job. But I'm with Secretary Lehman, Mr. Belger, and I think headquarters blew it. And I appreciate that Garvey, is the one in responsibility, but as I understand it, she delegated significant authority to you as a 30-year career professional. So, I'm going to turn my attention to you.

If I'm -- if you want to disabuse me of that notion in answering the first question -- the first question is, following up on Senator Gorton, had to do with this conversation that occurred, the teleconference that NMCC initiated. How in God's name could you put somebody on the telephone who joined the call with no familiarity or responsibility for hijack situations, had no access to decision- makers, and had none of the information available to senior FAA officials at that time? What the hell is going on that you would do such a thing? And don't blame that on -- (inaudible) -- who did that? Who put somebody on the phone that was not able to participate, was not able to tell, at a very late date, I must -- time, I must say -- the military what was going on?

MR. BELGER: I don't know. I don't know, as I said, who the NMCC tried to call. What I will say --

MR. KERREY: No, no. Do you -- no, that's not the question. Somebody joined the call, the NMCC call --

MR. BELGER: Who --

MR. KERREY: -- No, an FAA representative joined the call who knew nothing, had no responsibility for hijack situations, had no access to decision-makers, and none of the information available to senior FAA officials.

MR. BELGER: It is my understanding that that was an NMCC call that they are referring to.

MR. KERREY: Yes. But why did you put somebody on the phone that knew nothing?

MR. BELGER: I didn't put anybody on that phone --

MR. KERREY: Well, who did?

MR. BELGER: I don't know. That's what I said, sir.

MR. KERREY: Well --

MR. BELGER: Now, I will tell you, though, let's -- this will be -- this is very, very important, in response to your question -- the NMC -- and this is an assumption on my part, I'll say that right up front, because I said earlier I did not specifically ask this question, one of the millions of questions I wish I would have asked that morning but I didn't -- at 9:20, the NMCC was called. They were added to this open communication net. In my 30 years of history, there was always somebody listening to that net.

MR. KERREY: Well --

MR. BELGER: Real-time information.

MR. KERREY: Let me move --

MR. BELGER: That was the purpose of it.

MR. KERREY: Let me move to my second one, then, Mr. Belger. Now, I'm not going to have very many to get -- I mean, I could -- I've got a long list here that I could do, and I'm not going to get them in five minutes. Let's talk about 93. Wheels up at 8:42. At 9:28, Cleveland confirms a hijack. You know it at 9:34. Now we have this conversation at 9:49, 13 minutes afterwards, where Cleveland initially had said, "Are you going to put planes in the air? And somebody at headquarters should do something about it." They called back. And I presume you've seen the Staff Statement where they replay the conversation.

Command Center, "We want to think about scrambling aircraft." Command Center says -- FAA headquarters says, "Oh, God, I don't know." Command Center, "That's a decision somebody's going to have to make in the next 10 minutes." FAA headquarters, "You know, everybody just left the room."

I mean, do we have this out of context? I mean, there was no information delivered to the military that a plane was coming into Washington D.C. And again, thank God the passengers on 93 took the plane over. But a plane was headed to Washington D.C. FAA Headquarters knew it and didn't let the military know.

MR. BELGER: Well, if I can -- and I truly do not mean this to be defensive, but it is a fact -- there were military people on duty at the FAA Command Center, as Mr. Sliney said. They were participating in what was going on. There were military people in the FAA's Air Traffic Organization in a situation room. They were participating in what was going on.

To my knowledge, the NMCC was added to the conference call, the open conference call, at 9:20. By 9:45 or so, my attention was completely on getting the airplanes and the hundreds of thousands of passengers safely on the ground. There was an FAA security person running the hijack net. I had confidence that they were doing the right things.

MR. KERREY: Well, let me move on to my third one. It deals with something you've said, but actually Administrator Garvey was much more vocal about this. We were watching for something happening overseas. Let me deal into that a little bit.

Bojinka happens in '95. FAA sends somebody over to Manila. Are you familiar with that? Are you familiar with the FAA sending a representative over to Manila?

MR. BELGER: Yes.

MR. KERREY: And what'd they come back and say? What did that person report after going over to Manila and finding out that a member of al Qaeda was going to hijack 12 American airplanes in a suicide fashion? I've got to get both words in here, because you all say, "Geez, I didn't think they could commit suicide." There were 10 attacks by al Qaeda against the United States from 1992 to 2001, and nine of them were suicides. We knew by then that Bin Ladin was going to come after the United States.

So what did the guy report when he came back in 1995? What did he tell you? And what was your response to it?

MR. BELGER: Well, my recollection -- and I do not have specific recollection of what was said -- but my general recollection was that the threat at that time, and continued up through September 11, was really directed outside the borders of the United States.

MR. KERREY: In 1998, after the East African embassy bombing, Mr. Belger, it was in the newspaper that the United States of America federal government arrested two suspects that were in the United States, one in California, one in Texas. Why would you reach that conclusion that they were only going to attack outside the United States?

MR. BELGER: The conclusion I reached, sir, was based on the intelligence information that was given to me. I mean, I can't be any more clear.

MR. KERREY: I'm talking about stuff that's reported in the newspapers. It doesn't come from CIA. It's right out of the darn newspaper.

MR. BELGER: I -- hopefully -- I don't know, sir. I don't remember reading that.

MR. KERREY: You're in luck. My time has expired. (Laughter.)

MR. KEAN: Commissioner Ben-Veniste.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: First of all, I would like to express my congratulations and profound respect for the men and women on September 11th who got the planes down. This was an extraordinary effort to safely land over 4,000 planes that were in the air at the time of the hijacking.

Having said that, I was struck by Mr. Sliney's observation that he had no idea that terrorists could learn how to fly and take over a commercial airplane.

Now, it's no secret that we have repeatedly observed that one of the failures of 9/11 was the inability of the government to share information which it had in its possession prior to 9/11 that could have helped the common good, could have helped others prepare, and sensibly, to deal with what was perceived as a threat.

So I will ask the question, as I have to others, whether any of you were advised that on August the 18th, 2001, the Minneapolis office of the FBI sent a detailed memo to FBI Headquarters describing the Moussaoui investigation -- Moussaoui had been arrested the day before -- and describing the facts as believing that Moussaoui and others yet unknown were conspiring to seize control of an airplane, and that was based on Moussaoui's possession of weapons and his preparation, through physical training, for violent confrontation.

Did any of you receive that information in words or substance?

MR. BELGER: I did not.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: On August 27th, the FBI supervisor in Minneapolis, trying to get the attention of those in headquarters at FBI, said he was trying to make sure that Moussaoui, and I quote, "did not take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center" -- August 27th, 2001. Did anyone receive, in words or substance, that information?

MR. BELGER: No.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Finally, in characterizing, in a briefing to CIA Director Tenet later in the month of August, the headline "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly," Mr. Sliney, if you had had such information, and going back to the question of the tool box available to you, and individuals, as yet unnamed, according to the suspicion, highly educated, by the Minneapolis office of the FBI, had the intention to take over a commercial airliner, that at least one of them had received flight training and had sought flight training for commercial airliners, recognizing the ongoing intifada -- we don't have to go all the way back to World War II and the kamikazes. Various of my colleagues have talked about the repeated information coming from the intelligence community that suicide bombing, suicide hijackings, were in the tool box of the other team.

Is there not something that you could have done, either in terms of screening at the airports, ratcheting down what people could carry onto the airplanes, advising pilots about keeping the door of the cockpit locked and secured, is there nothing that could have been done had you received that information?

MR. BELGER: I think, if we had received information as specific as you just laid it out, there are some things that we would have looked at doing.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Such as?

MR. BELGER: Well, I think you described several of them. I think we would have also, off the top of my head, listening to how you described it, we would have considered looking at who else might be getting flight training.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Something which other offices of the FBI, particularly in Phoenix, had already suggested be done. Anything else from any of the other members of this panel?

MR. SLINEY: I think if the air traffic control community had known of such threats, I think our response to stop everyone would have been much sooner.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Elaborate on that, if you will.

MR. SLINEY: Well, I'm relying on what I perceive to be the very inquisitive and bright minds of all the air traffic controllers in this nation. And the first hijack, had there been a suggestion to me that the hijacker could actually fly the aircraft, I think I would have shut down a lot more -- a lot sooner.

I think everyone would have reacted. I think Boston Center may have reacted quicker in requesting the ground stops through their area, based on that type of intelligence. That was the anomaly that I indicated earlier that no one had experience with hijackers who could fly the plane.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: I appreciate those comments. Let me conclude with a question about prospective recommendations and whether they've been adopted. There's such a thing, I'm told, as the Industry Transponder Task Force. Is that an organization or a group known to you all?

MR. SLINEY: Not to me. It is not known to me.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: They made a recommendation to remove the capacity to turn off the transponder. They made recommendations to lock in the "7500" hijack code after entering that code, as well as other recommendations. But these have not percolated up to any of you?

MR. BELGER: I think the three of us retired well over a year ago, and myself well over a year and a half ago, so I don't know.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Fair enough. Do these recommendations make sense to you?

MR. SLINEY: Yes, absolutely. I believe one of your fellow commissioners asked that earlier. It seems almost obvious not to make it available to someone on the flight deck.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: We were told, and I'm not sure on the technical side of this, but that there is a capability to dump fuel remotely. Is that something which resonates with you as a technological possibility? We were told that it was, in fact, installed on other aircraft.

MR. SLINEY: I have read about that. I don't know much about it in terms of dealing with terrorism. But I have read that, and I've read about communication devices to communicate with the flight deck in ways that would not be obvious.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, the lethality, if you will, of a hijacked airliner piloted by a suicide fanatic is diminished, would you not agree, by the fact that if you subtract 28,000 or so pounds of highly combustible fuel -- is that remote capability to dump fuel another suggestion that might have some merit?

MR. BELGER: It might. Yes, sir.

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. KEAN: Commissioner Gorelick.

MS. GORELICK: I'd like to return to the question of the radars. As I understand it, the FAA had made a decision to phase out the primary radar system before 9/11. Is that correct?

MR. BELGER: That's correct.

MS. GORELICK: So if you'd actually implemented that before 9/11, we would have been completely blind with the transponders turned off. We would have had no visibility into where the planes with no transponders on were. Is that correct?

MR. BELGER: Not necessarily. The FAA's plan was to start de-commissioning some of the long-range radars, primarily those where we had some redundant coverage. We didn't plan to do anything that would affect our ability to see aircraft. But fundamentally, for operational financial reasons, and for costs associated for maintaining the old radars and the potential cost to replace those radars, the FAA did have a plan to start decommissioning some of the redundant -- my word -- long-range radars.

I don't believe -- Jeff is a -- Mr. Griffith is more of an expert than I, but I don't believe that any of our plans would have materially impacted that part of the country that we're talking about where these flights were. They're primarily in the more remote areas. But, yes, we did have plans to decommission long-range radars, fundamentally for financial reasons.

MS. GORELICK: So we made a decision at that point to, A, not address the holes in the primary radar system. As the chairman has adverted to, we know that one plane disappeared for a material and deadly period of time. And that decision was based on resources.

At the same time, we have the military carrying out its responsibilities, however one might define them, within the domestic United States, dependent upon -- largely dependent upon the FAA system. Is that right?

MR. BELGER: That's correct.

MS. GORELICK: And what I heard this morning from the military was a little disturbing, which is that we still have not resolved the issue of whose responsibility it is to maintain a radar system that would permit visibility across the country in a fairly effective way.

Can any of you address that question and tell us whether we should not be worried about this?

MR. BELGER: Well, I think it is a worry. I don't know personally the status today, but when I left the FAA, there was an ongoing discussion about who in the government was going to have the responsibility for funding and accountability for maintaining these radars and for purchasing new radars in the future.

You know, the FAA's radars are optimized for FAA's management of air traffic control purposes. The DOD has radars that are optimized for their purposes. Secret Service has radars that are optimized for their purposes and Coast Guard has radars for various reasons -- Customs, I should have said -- I meant Customs rather than Coast Guard -- has radars for their purposes, and they're optimized for their needs.

I think it was General Eberhart, I believe, this morning who used the word "integrated," and that's what has to be done. All these assets have to be integrated to form one picture so that everybody's looking at the same thing at the same time with the same automated capability to point out suspicious aircraft. And most importantly, the money's got to be provided.

MS. GORELICK: And whose job is it to integrate the system as you, I think, quite correctly suggest it should be, and to make sure it's paid for?

MR. BELGER: Well, I believe for -- my opinion -- for defense purposes, the Department of Defense ought to be setting the requirements for what they need. And the FAA is following those requirements and has integrated most, if not all, of their long-range radars now into the NORAD system so that NORAD has feeds off of almost all the FAA radars now. So they can see virtually the same thing that the FAA controllers can see.

If it's for defense purposes, in my opinion, the Department of Defense has to take the lead for requesting the funding. If it's for air traffic control purposes, the FAA's got to take the lead. So it depends. If it's defense, it's DOD, in my opinion.

MS. GORELICK: And to your knowledge, has this issue been resolved to date?

MR. BELGER: I honestly don't know.

MS. GORELICK: Does anybody here know whether that issue has been resolved?

MR. SLINEY: No.

MS. GORELICK: Well, it is a question we need to address. Thank you very much.

MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. This concludes our public questioning for today. I want to take the opportunity to thank all our witnesses and all who have testified before us over the past 18 months of the Commission's existence. I want to thank the National Transportation Safety Board for making this superb facility available to us. Thank you to the members of the Commission staff who have been absolutely tireless in their work.

Thank you very much to the families of victims and the survivors of the 9/11 attacks, because you've been with us each step of the way. We thank you for your dedication. And to turn your private anguish into public good is something that is really very, very special.

From the first day, this commission has been united behind the belief that we should share our learning process as deeply as we can with the public. We've tried to be as open and transparent and accountable to the American people as possible, given the nature of the materials that we've been handling. That's why we've had these 19 days of public hearings. We hope that these hearings have enhanced the public's understanding of the 9/11 attacks, and the fact that we are still facing continuous threats.

In just over a month, this commission will issue its final report. We will provide a full and complete accounting of the circumstances surrounding the 9/11 attacks. And we will also present recommendations.

The greatest service the Commission can render is to help make this country safer and more secure. We cannot go back and rescue those who were taken from us on 9/11, but we can and we must take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that other Americans don't suffer that same fate. We are determined to see that happens.

This hearing is adjourned. (Applause.) END.

MEDIA AVAILABILITY FOLLOW HEARING OF THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES NTSB CONFERENCE CENTER, L'ENFANT PLAZA, WASHINGTON, D.C. 12:48 P.M. EDT, THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 2004

AL FELZENBERG (commission spokesperson): Would everybody be seated, please. Thank you very much. The only ground rule, as always, is when recognized please give your name and your affiliation so we, and of course, the people listening at home know who is asking the questions. Thank you.

Governor, Congressman, I leave it to you.

MR. KEAN: Let us start off then, perhaps, with a couple of words on some of the things we think we've learned as a result of these hearings. We learned that NORAD and the FAA were unprepared for the type of attacks launched against the United States on September 11th. They struggled under very difficult circumstances to improve the homeland defense against a challenge that they had never encountered, and honestly never been trained to meet.

We learned there was great chaos that morning. Communications simply weren't good. Situational awareness was poor, and that was poor at all levels of government. We learned that the military had very little warning of the hijackings. The nine-minute notice of the American 11 hijacking was the very most the military received on the morning of the four hijackings. There was no prior notice of United 173, or United 93, and two-minute notice of an unidentified plane heading toward Washington later identified as American 77.

We learned that by the early 1900s, Bin Ladin had established a complex, well-organized terrorist organization with international reach. We did not begin to understand the scope and sophistication of al Qaeda until a number of years later.

MR. HAMILTON: We presented for the first time yesterday since 9/11 a complete overview of how the attack on America was conceived, and planned, and prepared, and executed as best we can possibly understand it at this time. We learned that the 9/11 plot was meticulously organized over many years. That the plotters had their problems, failure to train pilots, failure to get recruits into the United States, dissent, disagreement within the team, and dissent at the highest levels of al Qaeda.

But the plotters overcame their problems, al Qaeda adjusted. It exhibited flexibility and succeeded. We learned among the many details of the enemy plan, the role of Zacarias Moussaoui. He apparently received funding from al Qaeda for pilot training at a time when one of the pilots in the 9/11 plot nearly bailed out. We also learned just how little 9/11 cost. For less than half a million dollars, the plotters were able to inflict astounding devastation upon us.

And, finally, we were reminded again of the continuing threat of al Qaeda, it's intent to inflict harm is clear. It's capability today to harm us is unclear. And our efforts to collect intelligence on al Qaeda will, and must, continue.

We are prepared to receive your questions.

MR. FELZENBERG: When recognized please give your affiliation.

Q: Hi. Laura Fulton, Baltimore Sun. The FAA failed to tell the military for 30 minutes that these hijackings were going on, and failed to tell the pilots for 13 minutes to lock their cockpit doors. Do you feel satisfied with the answers you got from them?

MR. KEAN: No.

MR. HAMILTON: I think the encouraging thing is that they have testified about the improvements made since 9/11, a lot of steps have been made with respect to communications, protocol, and procedures, and training, and apparently exercises as well. And, the testimony is pretty strong that there have been remarkable improvements since 9/11.

MR. FELZENBERG: The gentleman right here.

Q: Hi, Mike Torahan, with the Denver Post. You said NORAD and FAA were unprepared. You've both served in government a long time, you know about the distractions that nip at bureaucrats and leaders every day. Hindsight is 20/20, but should they have been better prepared?

MR. KEAN: I believe they should have. Obviously they couldn't have been completely prepared, but there had been a number of warnings over a number of years. They weren't the only ones who weren't prepared in government. We hadn't taken seriously the rise of al Qaeda. We hadn't looked at the number of times they had attacked this country, in any number of ways. We hadn't looked at the fatwahs where Bin Ladin had said, the job of everybody who believes in my cause is to kill every American they can. We hadn't put together the various information in the various agencies that was available to us, and passed it around among government officials. So would you expect them to be prepared for the totally ingenious evil attack and the way it was performed? No. Should they have been more ready for something coming? Yes.

MR. HAMILTON: I agree with the governor's statement. I do recall this morning, it impressed me, I guess, again, General Myers saying that no one really had thought about using an airplane to crash into a building, and use it as a weapon, in effect. So one of the failures you have here, among others, is a failure of imagination. Our policy people simply were not able to imagine using an airplane as a weapon. And the second thing I would say is that, because of that, the environment under which these people that we've been talking to today operated, was extremely difficult, and unprecedented. And I think the Commission has to have an appreciation for that, as we try to make judgments.

MR. FELZENBERG: Vince back there.

Q: Vince Morris, with the New York Post. Can both of you speak about your impressions of the description of Vice President Cheney that morning, and the extent to which he seemed to be running America's response to this?

MR. KEAN: Well, Vice President Cheney when he came into the PEOC if I can use that expression, you understand what that is, was, in a sense, the highest ranking government official with whom there was communication, because the president for a while, and the president described to us his frustration at the communication problems within Air Force I. So he had to get in touch with Vice President Cheney, they set up then the Air Threat Conference Call. The president gave the -- at Vice President Cheney's suggestion, I believe, gave the order for the shoot down, and they were in communication after that. But, Vice President Cheney was the highest ranking official who was in Washington, who had his fingers on the mechanisms of the United States government. And he was in communication with the president.

Q: Air Force I was not in real good communication, the president didn't have all the information?

MR. KEAN: Yes, that's what I said. That's one of the main problems. And I said, the president himself said in our interview with him how frustrated he was. And I asked him the question then, has this been fixed? If this ever happened again, have the communication problems in Air Force I been corrected. He said yes.

MR. FELZENBERG: Lady in the blue, over here.

Q: Yes, Victoria Jones, Talk Radio News Service. The Associated Press is reporting this morning that President Bush has disputed your finding that there was no collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Would you like to comment on that?

MR. KEAN: Well, what we're going on is the evidence we have found. What we have found is that, were there contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq? Yes. Some of it is shadowy, but there's no question they were there. That is correct. What our Staff Statement found is there is no credible evidence that we can discover, after a long investigation, that Iraq and Saddam Hussein in any way were part of the attack on the United States.

MR. HAMILTON: I must say I have trouble understanding the flack over this. The vice president is saying, I think, that there were connections between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government. We don't disagree with that. What we have said is what the governor just said, we don't have any evidence of a cooperative, or a corroborative relationship between Saddam Hussein's government and these al Qaeda operatives with regard to the attacks on the United States. So it seems to me the sharp differences that the press has drawn, the media has drawn, are not that apparent to me.

MR. FELZENBERG: Bob, right up here.

Q: Commissioners, your colleague, Senator -- WNYC National Public Radio, New York. Your colleague, Senator Slade Gorton, really elicited one of the most interesting responses today when he actually brought up, I believe, a scenario that happened not two years ago, not three years ago, but a couple of weeks ago. What went through your mind when you heard that apparently this conscientious FAA employee found himself in somewhat of the same jackpot that they found themselves on September 11th, in terms of command and control, and who to talk to. Did that give you any pause about whether or not we've learned anything?

MR. KEAN: It gave me the jitters. What it basically said was that, although people are telling us these problems have been fixed, some of these problems are still out there, and he said that himself, he said, we've got to get this fixed, because people have got to know who is in charge when these emergencies occur, and that was another occasion all too recent, when nobody was quite sure who was in charge, and who should give the order.

Q: Marie Cocco with Newsday. Your Staff Statement says that at 9:05 that morning the White House Chief of Staff told the president, America is under attack. And it goes on to talk about a period until about 9:30, where it says no decisions were made. It then further says that at some time around the president apparently talked to Secretary Rumsfeld. Could you enlighten us at all about what was the president doing for that hour? The Staff Statement says they were working on a public statement, but we have a rather large void, other than that, and I'm wondering, since many of us have been on Air Force I, or in the press pool for the White House, we know there is certainly some communication from that plane.

Would you please enlighten us about that hour, and my second question would be, was there ever any order given to evacuate Washington? We had all these government officials sitting in Washington, worried about the incoming plane, and to my knowledge no evacuation order.

MR. HAMILTON: I think the president after he was informed by Mr. Card that America was under attack, was in a very difficult situation. The worst thing for the president to have done, I think, would have conveyed to the American people a sense of panic, or disorder. I think he made the right decision in remaining calm, in not rushing out of the classroom. Remember, the press, perhaps some of you, were there in the room with the president. And information at this point was still uncertain. So there was a period of time when the president was in that room, and he finished his obligations, and then went out of the room and it took a while to get the president back to the airplane. One of the bits of trivia I remember is that the motorcade was headed in the wrong direction, and they had to turn the motorcade around and get it headed towards the airport. And those kinds of things do take time. And during this period of time, between the school and Air Force I, the communications were not good, and they were not secure. Now, that's an area that I think has been corrected, as I understand it. Once they got onto Air Force I communications were much better.

Your second question, with regard to an evacuation, I do not recall any consideration of such an order. But, there were quite a few moves towards maintaining the continuity of government, to make sure that very high ranking officials in all three branches of government were secure.

MR. KEAN: You also asked about the Secretary Rumsfeld. He was late into the planning, frankly, because -- you remember, the Pentagon had been hit, and Secretary Rumsfeld's first reaction was to go help those who were hurt. He was in there among the rubble for a period of time. Therefore, he was late into those calls that the president took to both Condi Rice, and the vice president, before Secretary Rumsfeld was involved.

MR. FELZENBERG: Gail.

Q: Gail Sheehy, Pacifica Radio. Governor Kean, the FAA command center in Boston knew by 9:16 there was a multiple hijacking. You spoke about Secretary Rumsfeld, the Department of Defense Secretary, why was he missing in action all morning, before the Pentagon was hit? You have FAA headquarters talking at 9:49 about Flight 93, and the command center saying, do we want to think about scrambling aircraft, that's 10 minutes, or 8 minutes before 93 was taken down by passengers? Why wasn't Secretary Rumsfeld in the loop, why wasn't he in the Situation Room, why was he just missing in action all morning?

MR. KEAN: Well, he wasn't missing all morning. He had no knowledge what was going on, I believe, until the Pentagon itself was hit.

Q: I mean, wouldn't he be expected to have knowledge?

MR. KEAN: Because the communications that we've outlined today, step by step, there was a real problem with communication that morning. There were a lot of people who should have been in the loop who weren't in the loop. There were a lot of things that should have been done that weren't done. And hopefully some of those things have been corrected. He was not, I believe, knowledgeable until the Pentagon was actually hit. Is that correct?

MR. HAMILTON: I think the Secretary of Defense, as you all recall, went immediately to try to see if he could be helpful. He was in the parking lot for an extended period of time trying to help with the rescue efforts. He then returned, and he joined the Air Threat Conference Call at 10:39 a.m. And by that time, the vice president and the president had already been in touch with one another, and the so-called "shoot down" authorization had been given.

Q: This is after Flight 93 had crashed. Correct? So, the shoot down order didn't apply except to other aircraft in the air. But the question I just keep coming back to is, Secretary Rumsfeld was in the dining room of the Pentagon. Then he was in his office, and he had to go to the window of his office to see that the Pentagon was shot down. Couldn't somebody have called him in his office? Doesn't that make us a little nervous about the Secretary of Defense?

MR. KEAN: A lot of things about this story make us nervous. Communications is one of the main ones, and the Secretary of Defense isn't the only one. He was aware that the second plane had hit the Pentagon. By the time he became aware of that -- not the Pentagon, excuse me, the World Trade Center -- but they didn't convene the Command Center till about 9:30. And of course when the Pentagon was hit that took him out. But this whole story is one of a failure of communication, and you find it here, you find it in a lot of other places, that's been outlined today. And that's one of the areas that we have got to get it right.

MR. FELZENBERG: The gentleman in the front row, please.

Q: Mike -- (inaudible) -- Tribune. I just wanted to ask sort of a bottom-line question to you. Compared to the version of events that was publicly given right after the attack, it seems like there's a lot of what all the details you've learned since. Has this sort of surprised you how chaotic it was in comparison to the original public portrait of it? What's the difference in your mind between the original public portrait that was in the media that we were reporting before you guys did your independent investigation and the one you have now in terms of how people responded that day?

MR. HAMILTON: I guess what has surprised me is that we're really the first ones to put it all together. I think we have presented the most comprehensive detailed story of 9/11 that I've seen. And what I remember -- I may not remember correctly, but what I remember after 9/11 is that you had a lot of bits and pieces -- that is, every agency, every department was telling their story, and a lot of individuals were telling their stories, as they recollected the events of those days. And one of the things that struck me as we began the investigation here is that this story had never been put together in a comprehensive, coherent way -- detailed. And I guess that was our job to try to do it as extensively as we could.

MR. KEAN: But you're right to say the confusion affected so many other areas. I mean, it's been called I guess the fog of war. But when this happens, the phantom planes, the decisions were made based on a lack of information, the lack of communications. I mean, all this -- this is the story of a lot of problems. And shame on us if we don't learn from them. I mean, the whole point of our investigation is not just to do what we've done. We've got to learn from these problems.

MR. FELZENBERG: Chris, please, and then we'll move around.

Q: The Philadelphia Inquirer. Governor Kean and Chairman Hamilton, your report this morning makes clear that there was a lot of --

MR. FELZENBERG: Press that.

Q: I'm sorry. Your report makes clear that there was a lot of disparate information coming from disparate sources on the morning of September 11th, but with no one entity or person who was evaluating it or trying to make sense of it. What would your recommended fix for that be?

MR. KEAN: Well, I'm not going to talk about our recommendations now, because the committee frankly hasn't agreed to them. We're still talking about our recommendations. But the -- but certainly a unified command and control is very, very important. People have got to know where the buck stops in every one of these areas, and people have got to have that information in order to make proper decisions.

MR. FELZENBERG: The gentleman in the yellow over here. Thank you.

Q: Dan Gallo from Fox News. I'm wondering if you could elaborate a bit more on what you learned about the president's complaints about communication on Air Force One that morning. Was it phone connections or was it something that was routine before then? You know, was there a consistent problem, or what did you learn about that?

MR. HAMILTON: Yes, is the answer -- their phone connections -- they were trying everything. Keep in mind they're trying to understand what happened and they're trying to get the motorcade going and they're trying to get to Air Force One as quickly as they can. And the president is on the phone, and Andy Card is on the phone, and a half dozen other people are on the phone calling a variety of people in Washington. And so there was a real communication jam. At some point I think we heard that the president was using a cell phone. Is that right, Tom?

MR. KEAN: I don't remember --

MR. HAMILTON: I think I remember that.

MR. KEAN: Yeah, he was trying in every way as were his aides to get through. Because here's the commander-in-chief and there are decisions to be made. America is under attack, and the commander in chief can't get through to the nation's capital. I mean, that's a serious problem, and the president I think was on top of that one. That was a lesson the president learned right away. So I gather the fix to the presidential communications was one of the first things that was done after 9/11.

Q: The telephone was in the motorcade or aboard Air Force One?

MR. HAMILTON: I'm not sure just at what point that was. My recollection, have to understand it's that -- it was the -- the president was trying to speak on a cell phone from the presidential limousine to Washington.

MR. FELZENBERG: Sean, please?

Q: Yes, can we just go back to this -- can we just go back to this incident that happened a few weeks ago over New York that Mr. Sliney was talking about? What does that say to you about the effectiveness of the fixes that the FAA has, you know, says it's put into place?

MR. HAMILTON: Well, I don't remember the details of that, but obviously the mere fact that you have a system in place doesn't necessarily mean that it works. And one of the key things you have to do is to not only agree upon the protocol and the procedures, but you've got to test it. And you don't just test it once. You test it in a variety of ways, and you repeat those tests. I don't know in the flow of things here just where all of this stands in this particular instance. But it does raise this question in mind: When you hear all of this testimony, as we have repeatedly heard again and again and again that that problem has been fixed, we've got it worked out, you have to have some doubts about that, and you have to be skeptical. And I think you should be skeptical to see if it really does work.

Now, at the end of the day we probably have to accept the word of the people that they are working on the problem and that they think they have a solution to it. But you have to keep testing that all of the time. And you have to test it under as near realistic conditions as you can develop.

MR. KEAN: Yeah, but this was very, very disturbing, because you had a decision-maker two or three weeks ago who didn't know he had the power to make the decision. and he was asking all over the place on the phone, Who makes this decision? And then he had to find out he had the authority to make it. I mean, that's unacceptable. That is totally unacceptable, and we've got to keep on testing this system until we find out where those kind of breakdowns are and get them fixed.

MR. HAMILTON: One of the themes that runs through our entire investigation is the question, Who's in control? In any given circumstance, who is in control? Whether you're talking about emergency response or intelligence or putting together a counterterrorism policy, the question of who is in control is an absolutely key question. It's a simple question at least to state, but very, very difficult to work it all out.

MR. FELZENBERG: The lady on the aisle, and then we'll go to Bob up here. Bob, could we have the lady -- she has tried a couple of times. Is it a quick follow-up, Sean? All right.

Q: Are there any other problems that you've been told that are fixed that you are worried about?

MR. FELZENBERG: I should have stopped when we were ahead. (Laughter.)

MR. HAMILTON: Well, I've got quite a list of them.

MR. KEAN: Yeah.

MR. HAMILTON: There are quite a few things where we've been told it's been fixed or improved, and I'm not so sure it has been.

Q: Top five?

MR. HAMILTON: Well, I don't have top five, but I'll give you one. Is that enough? Okay. We think we've fixed the question of airport passenger screening, and I'm not sure we have.

MR. FELZENBERG: The lady on the end.

MR. KEAN: But you will find out, by the way, obviously some of the things which we don't believe yet are fixed are going to be addressed in our recommendations.

MR. FELZENBERG: Ma'am, go ahead, please.

Q: Hello, Samantha Levine with U.S. News and World Report. How concerned are you about some of the stark differences between the May 2003 testimony and what we're hearing now? And does that cast any shadows over the information we are now receiving? Does it introduce any doubt for you as to the veracity of what we're hearing today?

MR. HAMILTON: I'm sorry, I didn't hear. The testimony when?

Q: From last May.

MR. FELZENBERG: The differences --

MR. HAMILTON: Oh, from NORAD and FAA?

MR. KEAN: Are there any doubts in our mind? Yeah, the interesting thing is that people who have gave that testimony have now told us how much the Commission has helped them to learn the facts, which I guess I'm glad about. But the -- but he is -- his point is I guess that all the policymakers on that day are now in total accord with our Staff Statements. The Commission's work is now the authoritative story and agreed to by all parties as the authoritative story.

MR. HAMILTON: I think one of the real contributions the Commission has made is right at this point. We have sent the staff into these various agencies and departments with a lot of very detailed questions. You can see the immense amount of detail and knowledge that our staff has. And they've gone to these various agencies and departments and they've asked these questions, and the very fact of asking those questions has prompted the agencies and the departments to review their own procedures and to strengthen them. And I think an enormous amount of good has been done just by the fact of what we used to call in the Congress oversight -- you go in and you ask the tough, hard questions, and those questions reverberate through an organization. And the organization responds to those questions, because they have to get answers to them. They know our power in this commission to get the answers. And so I think that's been a very helpful role that the Commission has played.

But I must say I have not been impressed with the way that government -- the federal government generally has looked back on 9/11 and seen what mistakes were made. In other words, I think the Commission has helped the government through that process of reviewing 9/11, identifying the mistakes that were made and trying to correct them.

MR. FELZENBERG: Bob, please?

Q: From the Newark Star-Ledger. Is there any possibility that the vice president issued this shoot down order before actually conferring with President Bush?

MR. KEAN: I didn't hear the last part of that question.

Q: Is it possible that Vice President Cheney issued the shoot down order prior to conferring with President Bush?

MR. KEAN: Well, the testimony we have is from the president and from the vice president and from Condi Rice, who says she overheard part of that phone call. The phone logs don't exist, because they evidently got so fouled up in communications that the phone logs have nothing. So that's the evidence we have.

MR. HAMILTON: There's no documentary evidence here. And the only evidence you have is the statement of the president and the vice president, which was that the president gave the order to shoot down.

Q: Are you at all disturbed at how that was carried out?

MR. HAMILTON: Well, I'm not sure it was carried out.

Q: Well, it didn't have to be carried out, but the --

MR. HAMILTON: Yeah. It just looked to me -- it looked to me like there was a good bit of miscommunication between the order given by the president and the vice to shoot down, and what the pilots understood the orders to be. The pilots at that time thought -- did not think they had a shootdown order. I believe that's the evidence, the testimony isn't it?

MR. KEAN: That's correct. And that's very, very disturbing. When the president of the United States gives a shoot down order, and the pilots who are supposed to carry it out do not get that order, then that's about as serious as it gets as far as the defense of this country goes.

MR. HAMILTON: Let me indicate here though that, as General Eberhart made very clear, this is a very grave order, and I can understand why a pilot flying around up there would question a few times the order. You're ordering American jet fighters to shoot down an American commercial airliner with possibly hundreds of Americans on board who are totally innocent. And that order -- if you don't question that order something's wrong with you, I believe. So I appreciate -- I appreciated General Eberhart's caution at this point.

MR. FELZENBERG: James, please?

Q: James Major of -- Daily News. Governor Kean, you were just talking about how a lot of people in the government were out of the loop on 9/11 as these events were unfolding. But there was a window here, over an hour where these events were unfolding. Hijackings were traditionally the domain -- as has been testified -- of the FBI. That morning the FAA and NORAD were collecting all the information about the hijackings. But clearly neither fully -- neither agency or the officially fully understood what it all meant in terms of the scope of the potential attack that was going to unfold. Is there any evidence that you all have come up with that either the FBI or the CIA, which the Commission has said has gotten all this intelligence about al Qaeda's interest in aviation, were contacted that morning? Does anybody ask, What do you think is going on here? And if it were to happen today, would the FBI and CIA be within that FAA-NORAD-White House loop, as far as you know?

MR. KEAN: Well, first, I don't think we have any -- in the group reacting to the -- through the actual emergency, that clock was put in charge for the early group in the White House to react -- so that means that they were very aware it was al Qaeda, and very aware -- because he had been the collector and the coordinator of the information that was coming from the intelligence agencies. So I think they were -- that was -- but that became irrelevant, because their decisions then were made not by that group, but by the president and the vice president and the secretary of Defense.

Q: But I mean they didn't quite understand, necessary it seems like looking at all the tracks and the tapes you've been playing today, the potential of what these hijackings were going to accomplish, whereas perhaps somebody at the FBI or CIA might have.

But the second part of the question is today are they part of the loop? If there is a hijacking today, are they going to be in on the line so to speak to give their input?

MR. KEAN: I believe they would be.

MR. HAMILTON: I think -- yeah, I think they would be, because the intelligence would be gathered in TTIC, I believe, quickly -- although that may be a little misleading, I'm not sure. But if I'm right about the intelligence coming there quickly, the FBI would be involved immediately.

MR. KEAN: Yeah, the staff based on their work believes they would be.

MR. HAMILTON: Yeah.

MR. FELZENBERG: Michael. And this will be the next to the last question. Go ahead.

Q: Mike Kelly, Bergen Record. Given the kinds of communications problems that we've heard about this morning, do you agree or disagree with -- I think it was General Eberhart's statement -- he said that had the military had the information sooner that they could have responded and prevented I think he said all four of the planes from being --

MR. HAMILTON: Well, it was an extraordinary statement, and he based it on modeling, as I recall, that they have done. We have no information otherwise. But he's make a lot of assumptions there I think about almost instantaneous communication, and it's almost a hypothetical -- well, it is I guess a hypothetical question. But I heard that statement with some surprise personally.

MR. KEAN: It -- what he -- more important to me was that he feels that now the communications is instantaneous, and he believes that if such an event were to happen today that they would be capable of taking out all four planes. I hope he's right.

MR. FELZENBERG: All right, Siobhan, you'll be the last question -- may get a chance to talk to some of you later on the way out. But, Siobhan, go ahead.

Q: Back on oversight. Given --

MR. FELZENBERG: Affiliation, please?

Q: Oh, Siobhan Gordon with National Journal. On oversight, given this commission's aggressive role in performing oversight, what concerns do you have about the government's ability to continue that and keep the pressure on once the Commission's work is done?

MR. HAMILTON: Well, I think our job in the follow-up to the Commission's recommendations will be to present those recommendations to the Congress and to the Executive branch. And I think the chairman and I are committed to doing that. We're thinking now about what kind of a plan we will have to achieve it. But of course the Commission goes out of business, and the oversight function then will fall to the Congress to carry on not just the implementation of the plan so far as legislation is concerned, which will be important, but also with regard to continuing oversight. I'm a very, very strong believer in robust congressional oversight of the activities of government, and I'm very worried about that in the Congress today. I think the intent is good to have oversight, but because of a lot of factors which we won't go into here, the oversight has not been all that robust in the Congress. So we will have to urge the Congress to follow up -- not just in terms of implementation by legislation, but also continuing sustained oversight.

MR. KEAN: I obviously agree totally with the vice chairman. I -- and I might say that, as you know, is one of our mandates to look at oversight. And it will be addressed, to some degree at any rate, in our recommendations that we are now talking about.

MR. FELZENBERG: I want to thank you all for joining us these past few days, and appreciate it very much.

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