Sept. 11 families plan push for commission

WASHINGTON, May 20 (UPI) -- Families of Sept. 11 victims are organizing efforts, including an early June rally at the Capitol, to pressure President George W. Bush to support an independent commission that would investigate the events that led up to the attacks.

Leaders from the groups who lost loved ones in the attacks said a commission could provide the best independent, open and comprehensive analysis of what went wrong -- and glean some lessons to prevent future catastrophes.

"It is not about finger-pointing or vengeance," said Beverly Eckert, co-chair of Voices of Sept. 11, one of the groups participating. "We need to know what happened so that it is possible to prevent it from happening again."

Eckert lost her husband, Sean Rooney, 50, in the collapse of the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

Members of the groups said an ongoing investigation by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees is too narrow in scope and would inappropriately operate in relative secrecy.

Voices of Sept. 11 will join with more than a half-dozen other groups on June 11 to try to pressure the government into creating the commission, similar to the commissions that investigated the attack on Pearl Harbor that pulled the United States into World War II and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

The White House opposes a commission to look into the events leading up to the attacks, including possible intelligence failures, arguing instead that the House and Senate Intelligence Committees should conduct the only investigation. Those committees would conduct some of their investigation in secret.

"I think it is the wrong way to go," Vice President Dick Cheney said about a commission on Fox News Sunday. Cheney said the intelligence committees could best handle the sensitive information that would be discussed and keep it secret. Cheney said the government had already handed 180,000 pages of documents over to the committees.

Members of the groups ready to pressure the White House said secrecy could serve as an excuse to keep failed government activities secret. "Using national security as a rationale is (to oppose a commission) is contradictory and evasive," Eckert said.

Instead, leaders from the victims' groups said they would use public pressure to overcome objections from the White House. "I just assume we are not going to get their support until it is a political reality they have to deal with," said Steve Push, treasurer of Families of September 11th, which is also participating in the June rally. The group has around 1,000 members, according to Push.

Push lost his wife Lisa Raines, 42, when American Airlines flight 77 hit the Pentagon. They had been married 21 years.

Legislation is pending in both the House and the Senate that would establish an independent commission to look into the events leading up to the attacks. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., lead a bipartisan coalition in the Senate for an independent 14-member commission with the power to issue subpoenas. Congress and the White House would both appoint members. Rep. Tim Roemer, D-Ind., has drafted similar legislation in the House.

The bills are gaining steam in Congress. House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., announced Monday he would support Roemer's bill and challenged Republicans to follow suit.

"I hope the Republican majority will agree with me that this legislation deserves immediate consideration in the House of Representatives," Gephardt said.

Congressional sources said McCain and Lieberman might attach their bill to a defense authorization bill coming up soon in the Senate so that it would pass soon.

Roemer told United Press International he hoped the White House would change positions on this issue. "Congress needs to pass this and I am hopeful that the White House will support it in the future," Roemer said.

According to Lieberman's office, the commission would report its findings and recommendations to Congress and the public and could investigate the role of intelligence agencies, law enforcement, commercial aviation, diplomacy, immigration, and border control.

Between the end of 1941 and the summer of 1946, the attack on Pearl Harbor sparked eight separate investigations to establish responsibility, including one presidential commission. That commission concluded that local commanders in the Pacific should have been on higher alert.

After the war, a joint committee of Republicans and Democrats from the House and Senate conducted their own broad inquiry. Like the earlier investigations, the congressional commission did not assign ultimate responsibility for the attacks.

By executive order, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the so-called "Warren Commission" in 1963 to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The final report maintained that Lee Harvey Oswald alone and without accomplices assassinated Kennedy and wounded Texas Governor John Connally. That report has remained controversial to this day.

(UPI Congressional Bureau Chief Mark Benjamin and UPI Senior White House Correspondent Nicholas M. Horrock contributed to this report.)