Panel II of a Hearing of the House Government Reform Committee - 9/11 Commission Recommendations

Federal News Service August 3, 2004 Tuesday

HEADLINE: PANEL II OF A HEARING OF THE HOUSE GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE 9/11 COMMISSION

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE TOM DAVIS (R-VA)

WITNESSES: SALLY REGENHARD, FAMILY MEMBER OF 9/11 VICTIM; BEVERLY ECKERT, FAMILY MEMBER OF 9/11 VICTIM; ROBIN WIENER, FAMILY MEMBER OF 9/11 VICTIM

BODY:

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. STEPHEN LYNCH (D-MA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to my colleague. I want to thank you and all the families who have been willing to come here and help this committee and its work. So much of today's testimony from the earlier panel and from yourselves focuses on accountability and so much of this report, and it is stunning in its simplicity and its directness, focuses on accountability, whether it be accountability that's created by intelligence-sharing or immigration reform, as you've spoken about, or oversight by the Congress or the continuity of the 9/11 Commission itself. It's a thread that runs through all of what you're talking about, and I just wanted to ask you-how important-whatever we adopt in the end, and we all hope it's basically what the Commission has recommended here, but how important is that strain of accountability in getting the answers that you're looking for as trying to find out about your loved ones in their last hours, and in terms of getting some reliability in terms of every firefighter or every public servant who answers a similar call-how important is the fact that that accountability be in that plan that we come up with eventually through this legislation?

MS. REGENHARD: Well, I'd like to say that certainly accountability and responsibility are the hallmarks of a democratic society. In 9/11 we've had an absence of accountability and responsibility, and the people who perished were pinnacles of accountability and responsibility. They led lives characterized by that, and yet people who caused their death through omission or through commission, there has been no accountability or responsibility for all the levels. If it's the INS, the DOT, the CIA, the FBI, you know, members of our family steering committee two years ago sat in the Joint Intelligence Committee hearing, and we saw the FBI person with the hood on weeping and saying he tried to tell, he tried to share, people didn't want to listen to him. He begged them, so on and so forth. Every time we hear that this could have been stopped in some way, or at least a bump in the road, it's a knife in the heart of the families. Yes, accountability and responsibility means everything to us, everything, and unless we have that, what is the impetus, what is going to force people to do their job and to be responsible? Yes, I want that. My son lived his life by accountability and responsibility. He deserves that as a legacy to protect people in the future.

REP. LYNCH: Thank you.

MS. WIENER: I don't know that I can really add to that. The report is replete with a flavor that no one was in charge, so that the Commission did not make an effort-I'm sorry, they sidestepped, I think for good reasons, in order to focus on reform, but names weren't named. But I think the days, and I think that's a long time past. I think we do have to have somebody who is in charge and who is accountable, and that's why the Director of National Intelligence Commission with authority is so important, because with that there will be accountability.

MS. ECKERT: And I think what Sally said is key in that it's only through accountability that you can ensure that there is some mechanism that people have an incentive, essentially, to do the right thing, because if they don't, that they will be held accountable. And so accountability is certainly key to making sure that this is not repeated.

REP. LYNCH: I just want to emphasize what Mr. Tierney spoke of earlier, and that is, the good that you can do, that the moral imperative that you have at your command, the passion you have because of what you've gone through. And even though we've talked incessantly about the politics, and how things might get bogged down, there is no politics in the face of that type of testimony, the testimony that we've heard from you today. And it will fall away, it will fall away. We need the power of your passion and your conviction on behalf of your loved ones, and we need to have that power to help move this process.

Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT