国会记录：2002年11月13日（参议院）Page S10875-S10877独立委员会调查9月11日袭击麦凯恩先生。主席先生，立法参议员利伯曼和我去年介绍了一个独立委员会，调查9月11日袭击将参议院作为海军安全账单的修正案，每票90至8票。投票前几天，政府发出一封信，支持创建一个独立委员会。但国会即将休会而没有这样做，可以完成它。在国土安全法案上达成的协议是一个受欢迎的发展，并使我们的国家更加安全。但是，尽管9月份的参议院投票，但许可的案例不包括我们的独立委员会提案，尽管以前在利伯曼和格拉姆米勒票据中纳入其中。我相信布什总统和他的团队令人钦佩地回答恐怖袭击的宗旨，以及联合情报委员会调查进入相关智能失败的调查已经增加了我们对出现问题的原因。但是，政府或国会都不能独自能够进行彻底，非竞争，对9月11日发生的事情进行彻底的，或建议在未来保护我们的人民和我们的机构的深远措施。到这一天，我们几乎没有关于19人武装武装BoxCutters的信息，这可能会得到如此有效地袭击美国。在我们国家历史上的其他悲剧之后，如珍珠港和肯尼迪总统的暗杀，立即被任命为审查出错的问题并建议所需的改革，以防止这种悲剧再次发生。 There has been no such review since September 11. This is what our proposed commission would do. Its goal would be to make a full accounting of the circumstances surrounding the attacks, including how prepared we were, and how well we responded to this unprecedented assault. The commission would also make comprehensive recommendations on how to protect our homeland in the future. It would examine not just intelligence but the range of Government agencies and policies, from border control to aviation security to diplomacy. Learning the lessons of September 11 will require asking hard questions. It will require digging deep into the resources of the full range of Government agencies. It will demand objective judgment into what went wrong, what we did right, and what else we need to do to deter and defeat depraved assaults by our enemies in the future. No such review has occurred to date. Passage of the homeland security legislation is a good start to making needed reforms, but to some extent we are flying blind in our efforts to reform our approach to homeland defense because we still do not know what parts and policies of the Government failed the American people last September 11. We do know, thanks to press leaks and the work of the joint intelligence committee, that significant failures occurred. The chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee have suggested we might have prevented the September 11 attacks had we properly analyzed available information. They strongly support our independent commission legislation to carry on the work their joint intelligence investigation started. Together with Senators Bob Graham and Dick Shelby, we have been negotiating intensively with the White House and remain hopeful we might reach an agreement with them to create a commission, but we believe Congress must speak on this issue. The families of September 11 will not rest until they have answers about how their Government let them down and what we can do to make sure such tragedy never strikes America again. This is not a witch hunt. It is a search for the answers that will enable us to [[Page S10876]] better protect our Nation against future attack by terrorists. It is about the future, not the past. It is worthy of the strong bipartisan support it has already received. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I want to thank my friend from Connecticut for his efforts on behalf of this commission. I want to thank him for his efforts on behalf of the families, and I want to thank the White House for their continued negotiations. It is time we wrapped up these negotiations so this commission can be part of the Homeland Security bill. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut. Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank my dear friend from Arizona for his strong statement, for joining me in introducing this amendment, and for his characteristic steadfastness in pursuit of an important cause regardless of the opposition and where it comes from. He and I introduced legislation last December. We are approaching a year ago. It was a few months after the tragic attacks of September 11. We felt there should be an independent citizen commission, nonpartisan, with full powers of subpoena and adequate resources to investigate how could September 11 have happened, because clearly the fact it did happen said we were not adequately protecting the American people. We were insistent that this kind of investigation occur so we could learn how to prevent it from ever happening again. There have been roadblocks along the way, but we have continued to state, and we state again, we are not going to give up this fight until such an independent commission is created because we cannot rest until the truth and the whole truth, so help us God, as best as anyone is able to find it, is determined about September 11. Because without that unlimited, unvarnished, uninhibited truth, we are not going to be able to inform this new Department of Homeland Security adequately. This measure of ours passed the Senate earlier this year when we were considering the Homeland Security measure. It passed overwhelmingly with bipartisan support. In fact, the so-called Gramm-Miller substitute incorporated this provision, which I was very grateful to Senator Gramm and Senator Miller for doing, and Senator McCain was a great advocate for that cause. In the substitute introduced by Senator Thompson, in coordination with the White House and the House, the commission proposal is not in it, and that is not acceptable. Senator McCain has said happily we continue to negotiate with the White House up until this moment, hopeful that an agreement can be secured that will create the aggressive, independent, nonpolitical commission this tragedy requires. But if it is not, and we have not reached an agreement yet, we are going to do everything we can to reinsert this commission into this Homeland Security bill where it belongs. I think I can say for my friend from Arizona and myself if for some reason that does not work, we are going to keep introducing it wherever and whenever we think we can get a vote that will make it law. We owe this to the families of the September 11 victims. I have met with them, as Senator McCain has, several times. Their desire for this commission is in some ways the strongest and most compelling argument anyone can make on its behalf, because they asked us and they asked America, having lost loved ones, how could September 11 have happened? We owe them an answer to that question, and we have not given it to them yet. As Senator McCain said, the work by the Joint Intelligence Committee has revealed information, media investigations have revealed information, that only increases our understanding of how much more we need to know. The Senate coleaders of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Graham and Senator Shelby, are now strong supporters of this commission idea. Going back to the families of the September 11 victims, I do want to say the persistent advocacy of these families, led by Steve Push, Kristen Breitweiser, Mary Fetchet, Beverly Eckert, and so many others, despite their great personal loss, has inspired not only my deep admiration but our continuing commitment to fight for this commission until it comes to fruition. We are not interested in pointing fingers. This is all about our common security, and improving it is our common responsibility. I hope our colleagues will join us in supporting this amendment to the Homeland Security bill and restoring this provision to create an independent commission on September 11. Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield? Mr. LIEBERMAN. I yield to my friend. Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator agree it is a bit surprising we have not been able to make greater progress on this commission since there was a recorded vote in the Senate of 90 to 8, and it was included in the Homeland Security bills prior to this latest iteration? Again, I want to thank the White House for their active participation, but I hope that mandate would be felt by one and all. A 90-to-8 vote usually does not seem to have difficulty, at least from the Senate side, in becoming a part of legislation. Interestingly, we do not find it in the Homeland Security bill. In the interest of straight talk, if there is a cloture vote and it is not in there at that time, then the amendment for a commission will fall because of nongermaneness, a situation which I do not think is really what was intended when we had a 90-to-8 vote on this issue in the Senate. Mr. LIEBERMAN. The Senator from Arizona is quite right. He remembers the numbers exactly. It was a 90-to-8 vote--very strong bipartisan support for this idea. That support ought not be frustrated. I have seen public opinion surveys that say it represents the desire and opinion, quite naturally, not just of the families of September 11 victims but of the American people. So while I join my friend from Arizona in expressing my gratitude that the White House has again today restarted negotiations to try to reach an agreement, I must say leaving this proposal for a commission out of this substitute that is now put in to create a Department of Homeland Security is inexplicable. I hope we can explain it by either putting it back in or coming to an agreement with the White House. It is that critical. Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for one more question? Mr. LIEBERMAN. I would be glad to. Mr. McCAIN. Is it not true, from conversations with the families, that the families do not want this commission created by executive order because then it would not have the input of the legislative branch? And second of all, that other commissions in the past have all been created by acts of Congress, not by executive order? Is that the Senator's understanding? Mr. LIEBERMAN. The Senator from Arizona again is correct. There have been some commissions created by other bodies. But the ones in the most important cases have been created by Congress. On the first point, which is a powerful point, it is the clear desire of the families of the victims of September 11 that this commission be created by Congress. We ought to create it. This was a national catastrophe. As we create a Department of Homeland Security to protect the American people from that ever happening again, we ought to, as the representatives of all the people of this country, all of them in this terrible new era we have entered, potentially victims of terrorism--we, as their representatives, ought to say loudly and together, hopefully together with the administration, we can never know too much about how September 11 happened. We do not know enough now how September 11 happened. The one best way to know as much as we can of the truth about September 11 is to create a strong, nonpolitical commission with full resources and powers of subpoena to get to the truth. The day for this commission will come. The arguments for it are irresistible. Let us hope that day is sooner than later. I thank my friend from Arizona for his persistence and advocacy. Also, it is an honor to work with him. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with a lot of other Members, of both parties, of this body to get this commission created. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. [[Page S10877]] The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Clinton). Without objection, it is so ordered. ____________________