Former senator discusses role on 9/11 Commission

Former U.S. Senator Slade Gorton made an on-campus appearance yesterday afternoon, to speak about his experiences as a member of the 9/11 Commission and assessing the federal government's progress in fighting terrorism in the wake of the commission's recommendations.

Gorton, who represented Washington State from 1982-2000, spoke to an International Studies class of about 250 in Guggenheim Hall at the invitation of professor Mary Callahan. Callahan assigned The 9/11 Commission Report as required reading for her students.

The 10-person commission was charted by the federal government in 2002 to examine the government's preparedness for terrorism up to and on the day of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The commission released its report -- which also contained recommendations to the federal government for combating terror -- in July 2004.

The former senator countered the assertions of former White House terrorism advisor Richard Clarke, who claimed the Bush administration ignored his warnings about al Qaeda.

No one, including Clarke, within the federal government could have conceived of a terrorist act as brazen and destructive as the Sept. 11 attacks, Gorton emphasized.

"Even Richard Clarke's imagination did not encompass an attack more serious than those on our two African embassies in 1998," Gorton said. "And even Clarke was content with a three- to five-year program to 'roll back' al Qaeda."

The former senator claimed the territorial nature of federal agencies and the lack of cooperation within the agencies were mostly to blame for the government's failure to stop the Sept. 11 hijackers.

According to Gorton, even though the State Department had a list of 2,000 to 3,000 known or suspected terrorists, the Federal Aviation Administration had no knowledge of the list and had "no people banned from flying on 9/11."

"The net result was that after all of these failures, 19 individuals with a total budget of less than $500,000 stymied every attempt of the United States against terrorism and inflicted on us the most costly surprise attack in our history," said Gorton.

Gorton projected the U.S. war on terror would take "decades" to fight.

He cited the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and the Patriot Act as moves in the right direction.

But despite what Gorton declared was progress, the Bush administration has still only gotten "halfway there" with reforms, he said.

"I think we will be more effective. There will be a greater degree of sharing of important intelligence information," he said of government reform. "The challenge not only to our government, but to all of us as Americans, is how to meet that challenge [of the war against terror] in the best possible way without compromising any of the ideals and the rights and liberties which are so precious to all of us."