Quotes: Reactions to 9/11 Report
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Comments Thursday regarding the Sept. 11 commission report:
"They've done a really good job of learning about our country, learning about what went wrong prior to September 11th, and making very solid, sound recommendations about how to move forward. I assured them that where government needs to act, we will." — President Bush, speaking to commission chairman Thomas Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"As we detail in our report, this was a failure of policy, management, capability and, above all, a failure of imagination." — Kean.
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"If you look back, all of us had signals. We recite those signals at great length in the report. And we simply did not put them together to understand that terrorism was the predominant national security threat to the United States." — Hamilton.
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"There are bad consequences to being in the middle of a political season and there are also good ones, because everyone who is running for office can be asked, Do you support these recommendations?" — Commissioner Jamie Gorelick.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"There are imperatives that we must move on rapidly." — Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who said that, if he is elected and Bush has not acted on the commission's findings, he would immediately convene an emergency security summit.
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"The time is now to take action. Congress needs to get to work on this. We should not focus on blame, because thousands of Americans died on September 11, and it's very important for those of us in positions of responsibility to pay tribute to them and take action." — Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., vice presidential candidate.
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"We will look at their recommendations carefully. I will ask our committee chairmen to hold hearings on these recommendations over the next several months, so we can act on them as quickly as possible." — House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"This isn't the end of this process, this is Day One." — William Doyle, whose son Joseph died at the World Trade Center.
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"The American people have to use this report as an incentive for us to move forward now. It is not going to be acceptable that you identify problems and nothing is done." — Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J.
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"The alarm bells that we've been hearing for months continue to fall on deaf ears here in the U.S. Senate. I hope the 9/11 report will finally push our Republican leadership to bring up the homeland security appropriations bill and other homeland security measures." — Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I think that the commission really did an outstanding job when you consider the political nature of this town that seeps into absolutely everything. So, the fact that they had a bipartisan, unanimous report is a miracle in itself." — Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga.
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"What the report does make clear is that the Bush administration did not give al-Qaida the high priority it should have had, either before or after 9/11. The administration put Iraq, not al-Qaida, at the top of its agenda when it came to office in 2001." — Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
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"I think the changes they are recommending are everything I could have wished for." — Martha Sanders, of Darien, Conn., who lost her daughter Stacey at the World Trade Center.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"This is a straight-talking, tough, bold, nonpartisan report. ... But we all know that this report is only the end of the beginning, it's not the beginning of the end, that they've given us a charter, a course, a series of recommendations and now it's up to us to carry it forward." — Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.