Tick, Tick, Tick...

No convictions for 9/11, no cooperation...no clue.

White House failed to aid antiterror probe, Kean says
By Philip Shenon
New York Times News Service

WASHINGTON - The White House has failed to turn over any of the information requested by the 10 members of the disbanded Sept. 11 commission in their renewed, unofficial investigation into whether the government is doing enough to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States, commission members say.

The members said that the Bush administration's lack of cooperation was hindering a project that was otherwise nearly complete.

Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey who led the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission, said he was surprised and disappointed that the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and several other executive-branch agencies had failed to respond to requests made two months ago for updated information on the government's antiterrorism programs.

The requests came not from the disbanded commission, which was created by Congress and had subpoena powers, but from its shadow group, which the members call the 9/11 Public Discourse Project. It was established by members of the Sept. 11 commission when the panel formally went out of business last August, shortly after releasing a unanimous report that called for an overhaul of the nation's counterterrorism agencies.

"It's very disappointing," Kean said of the administration's failure to cooperate with the group. "All we're trying to do is make the public safer."

Kean said there had been no response of any sort to interview requests for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Porter J. Goss, the CIA director; Robert S. Mueller 3d, the FBI director; and Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, among others.

A White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, would not answer directly when asked whether the administration intended to respond to the project's requests for information before next month, when the group is scheduled to publish an updated report that assesses the progress of the government's counterterrorism efforts.

Perino said that much of the information sought by the private group was available from public sources.

"We welcome their interest in seeing their recommendations implemented," Perino said. "There is ample public information available for them to review about all of the actions we continue to take to better protect the American people."

She said the administration had provided "unprecedented" cooperation to the commission during the official investigation, including access to more than two million documents.

Several executive-branch agencies had no immediate comment when asked Friday whether they intended to provide additional information, but the Department of Homeland Security said it intended to provide a package of information.

In telephone interviews in which he repeatedly expressed his frustration with the White House, Kean said the Public Discourse Project intended to publish its "report card" next month, with or without the administration's assistance, although he said that "obviously it's most helpful to have the information from the agencies that are trying to implement the reforms."

"Honestly, I thought they would want to cooperate," he said of the White House and the agencies. "I thought it would give them a chance to tell their story. They have made some progress."

Kean would not forecast the conclusions of the new report, except to say it would be "tough but fair" in assessing the work of government agencies involved in counterterrorism.

Several of the major recommendations made in the commission's report last year have been put into effect, including the creation of the job of director of national intelligence, a post held by John D. Negroponte.

But other recommended actions have not been taken, including the commission's call for a restructuring of congressional oversight of the nation's spy agencies and for a major expansion of the government's nuclear nonproliferation efforts.

Timothy J. Roemer, a Democratic member of the commission and a former House member from Indiana, said that the White House was being "tone-deaf" in withholding information from the Public Discourse Project.

"You'd think that the administration would be doing all it could to help address some of the answers that the 9/11 commission proposed to make the country safer," he said.

Kean said that the project had sent detailed letters on June 16 to Card and to the leaders of the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and the other agencies with responsibility for counterterrorism programs.

The letters requested interviews and updated information on the agencies' efforts to deal with terrorist threats, asking that all the information be provided by Aug. 15. But Kean said Card and the others had failed to respond to the letters or even to acknowledge their receipt.

Kean released copies of letters to the New York Times. The letters are two pages long and ask for information "on steps taken to make the American people safer and more secure."