9/11 Attack Not Preventable?

In what might seem a rare display of integrity and common sense, the 9/11 Commission's final report will not claim that the attack was preventable; instead, it will allow the public to make up its own mind:

The Sept. 11 commission's final report won't declare that the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history was preventable, though some panelists said during the 20-month investigation they believed the hijackers could have been stopped.

In the end, the panel's five Democrats and five Republicans did not want to draw a conclusion on that major point, believing it could open the way to partisan sniping in a presidential election year.

"My personal view is that the intelligence system we have has been broken for a long time," said Republican commissioner John Lehman, a former Navy secretary. "But we wanted to let the American people make up their mind. They don't need our editorializing."

[...]

Commissioners won't point to individuals in the Clinton or Bush administrations, instead laying out what they consider a factual accounting of events.

"What's worked for us all along is looking at what the facts are and not trying to put any spin," said Democratic commissioner Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general. "We will lay out the facts with as much particularity as we can."

However, several commissioners say those facts could lead readers to conclude the attacks were preventable had the government done a better job following up on intelligence tips and tracking the 19 hijackers, some of whom entered the country illegally.

So, they are not saying the attack was preventable, but they are saying that readers could conclude that it was preventable.

Good. Glad we got that straightened out.