The Gore commission produced what most observers considered to be a tough preliminary report unveiled Sept. 9, 1996 – one that included extensive counter-terrorism procedures. But within days, according to Victoria Cummock, a whistleblower commission member, the airline industry jumped all over Gore with concerns about costs. As a result, 10 days later, Gore sent a letter to airline lobbyist Carol Hallett promising that the commission's findings would not result in any loss of revenue.
The Democratic National Committee received $40,000 from TWA the next day. Within two weeks, Northwest, United and American Airlines ponied up another $55,000 for the 1996 campaign. In the next two months leading up to the November elections, American Airlines donated $250,000 to the Democrats. United donated $100,000 to the DNC. Northwestern contributed $53,000. Other reports suggest even more airline money was poured into the election campaign that year. Following the election, in January, Gore floated a draft final report that eliminated all security measures from the commission's findings, according to Cummock. Two commission members balked, as did CIA Director John Deutch.
Fearing more political heat, Gore pulled back the draft report. A month later, the final report was issued – one that included requirements that would cost the airlines money for new security measures. The report's requirements included:
But there were two things missing from the report, said Cummock – there was no deadline by which those requirements would have to be implemented and no funding mechanism for ensuring that they were. In the 1970s, for instance, when security checkpoints at airports were first implemented, the government provided tax credits as a funding mechanism. No such measures were mandated or offered as part of the Gore commission recommendations.
Thus, the requirements were not in place Sept. 11 of this year when terrorists hijacked four airliners, crashing two into the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon and crashing a fourth in Pennsylvania. In fact, they are still not in place. In a meeting with other commission members Feb. 12, 1997, Gore said he would leave room for a dissent by those who opposed the report. Cummock expressed her strong dissent. But within minutes, she says, Gore was announcing to the president and the public that the report was the work of a unanimous commission.
Cummock filed suit to gain access to files she and the public were denied. She won the case, but the material still has not been made available to her.
Cummock was appointed to the commission by Clinton because her husband was killed in the terrorist downing of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland, and because of her work in counseling victims of such disasters.
Hallett now also agrees that the original 31 recommendations of that commission might have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks.
"In our hearts, everyone must realize that failure to use the (profiling) techniques that are available today may be directly responsible for the events of Sept. 11," she said in a speech to the Travel Industries Association in Atlanta.
The FAA issued a statement saying the security improvements mandated by the report were slowed by "often conflicting and time-consuming" federal rule-making procedures and by efforts to protect civil liberties.
As of last month, days after the terrorist attack, according to a Los Angeles Times report, the agency was still collecting research on how to keep intruders from slipping past airport perimeter fences and into restricted areas. The FAA had not launched an effort to assess the vulnerability to terrorists of the nation's 450 commercial airports. Measures to improve detection of explosives in baggage were still being considered by various agencies. The FBI was still working on a plan to protect civilian airliners from surface-to-air missiles. The FAA was negotiating with intelligence agencies for access to confidential information about potential terrorists and plots.
Before Sept. 11, the FBI knew that at least two men with ties to Osama bin Laden had entered the country. But authorities did not notify the airlines, despite bin Laden's threats to bring down U.S. airliners. The commission report, despite its lack of teeth, acknowledged the threat of terrorism.
"People and places in the United States have joined the list of targets," it said. "It is becoming more common to find terrorists working alone or in ad hoc groups, some of whom are not afraid to die in carrying out their designs."
Even Gerald Kauvar, staff director of the Gore commission, admits the government had more than enough information and time to act.
"It's a government failure," he told the Los Angeles Times. "We specifically said the FAA had to change, and they've proved resistant to change."
But Cummock insists that the change would have taken place if the Gore commission had simply provided deadlines for action. She believes Gore sold out airline security for campaign cash.
"They buried it," she says. "And it's disgraceful that Gerry Kauvar would blame government failure. If anyone has blood on his hands, it's Gerry Kauvar. He was an impediment to getting to the truth."
Unlike most Americans, Cummock says she was not surprised by the terrorism of Sept. 11.
"We were briefed that it would happen," she says. "These scenarios of terrorists using our assets was part of the fact-finding process we looked at. It was inevitable with such lax security procedures."
