9/11 panel: Agencies still don't share information

WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than four years after the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. intelligence agencies still are failing to share information while Congress battles over security funding, a panel that investigated the terrorist hijackings will conclude in a new report.
In interviews Friday, members of the former Sept. 11 commission said the government should receive a dismal grade for its lack of urgency in enacting strong security measures to prevent terror attacks.
The 10-member, bipartisan commission disbanded after issuing 41 recommendations to bolster the nation's security in July 2004. The members have reconstituted themselves, using private funds, as the 9/11 Public Discourse Project and will release a new report Monday assessing the extent their directives have been followed.
Overall, the government has performed "not very well," said former commission chief Thomas Kean, former Republican governor of New Jersey. "Before 9-11, both the Clinton and Bush administrations said they had identified Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaida as problems that have to be dealt with, and were working on it," Kean said. "But they just were not very high on their priority list. And again it seems that the safety of the American people is not very high on Washington's priority list."
A spokesman at the Homeland Security Department declined to comment until the report is issued Monday. Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, acknowledged that some areas continue to be vulnerable but have not been addressed due to disagreements with the Senate.
Congress established the commission in 2002 to investigate government missteps that led to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It found that the United States could not protect its citizens from the attacks because it underestimated Al-Qaida. Since June, the former commissioners have held hearings to examine what they described as the government's unfinished agenda to secure the country.
Kean said information-sharing gaps among turf-conscious federal intelligence agencies continue to exist. He also chastised the Transportation Security Administration for failing to consolidate multiple databases of passenger information into a single "terror watch list" that would make it easier for airlines to screen for suspicious travelers.
A bright spot in the government's performance is the creation of a national intelligence director to help coordinate all government terror information, former Democratic commissioner Timothy Roemer said.