🚀 go-pugleaf

drivel drabble 
dont you have any work to do
On Sat, 1 May 2004 21:02:30 GMT, Graham Drabble
<graham.drabble@lineone.net> wrote:

>The Bush-Clinton Administrations Had Enough Information Before 9/11 to
>Prevent Aircraft from Becoming Missiles 
>
>Washington, DC: 
>
>Independent Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader today urged the 9/11
>Commission to highlight the failure of the Bush and Clinton
>Administrations to take action to re-enforce the doors of aircraft
>cockpits noting: "This single safety step could have thwarted the events
>of September 11." 
>
>On April 8, when Condolezza Rice testified before the Commission
>Investigating September 11, she acknowledged that hardening the cockpits
>could have made a difference: "That would have made a difference. We
>weren't going to harden cockpits in the three months that we had a
>threat spike." 
>
>In fact, the US government had more than enough information prior to the
>information generated in the months prior to 9/11 to have taken action
>to re-enforce cockpit doors to thwart hijackers and terrorists. In
>addition to official intelligence scenarios about the potential for
>hijacked planes being used in terrorist attacks in the US against
>buildings, there have been 167 hijackings involving US airlines and 11
>hijackings involving foreign airlines on US soil since 1970. 
>
>"It has been evident for decades that we needed to harden cockpit doors
>and strengthen their latches. Some foreign airlines have installed just
>that safeguard. The failure of the federal government for years to
>address this despite clear evidence of the need is a tribute to how our
>government has deregulated mechanisms for national security. The
>resistance by airlines and aircraft manufacturers sent the soporific FAA
>into inaction, despite long time requests for action by safety groups
>and aviation security experts. If our government, sometime over the last
>30 years, had been responsive, this single act would have made it much
>more difficult for the terrorism of 9/11 to have succeeded in turning
>aircrafts into missiles." said Ralph Nader. "The 9/11 Commission, before
>its final report, needs to research this situation and come to a
>judgment about the reasons for failing to protect airline passengers and
>persons on the ground." 

relloman