by LINDA CONNER LAMBECK
Connecticut Post
April 12, 2005
Along with free pizza, an audience of 250 Yale undergraduates and law students got homework Monday during a panel discussion about intelligence reform with lawmakers from Connecticut.
“Read the 9-11 report,” urged U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, speaking in a Yale University Law School auditorium where he once sat as a student. The Connecticut Democrat joined U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4, and other key players with a role in implementing national intelligence reform and anti-terrorism measures.
Lieberman said the Sept. 11 Commission’s final report on the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon is more than a good read, Lieberman said. If the recommendations had been in place before Sept. 11, 2001, there was a good chance the terrorist attacks wouldn’t have happened, he said.
“It should be required reading,” said Michael Hurley, director of policy for the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, and former director of counter-terrorism policy review for the 9-11 Commission. “There’s no exam. Instead you’ll be tested on it throughout your careers and lives.”
The two-hour forum offered Yalies a rare look into the 9-11 commission and its recommendations. The forum also included remarks by Seth Green, a Yale law student and founder of Americans for Informed Democracy, and Mary Fetchet, founding director and president of Voices of September 11th. Earlier, before a smaller audience of about 100, Fetchet stopped several times to catch her composure as she described her transformation from an apolitical mom and social worker in Milford to someone able to navigate the halls of Congress and become an advocate for intelligence reform.
The New Canaan resident lost her son Brad, 24, in the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Brad was in Tower 2 that morning, and after the plane hit he stayed where he was, following instructions over the intercom.
Within a matter of weeks, Fetchet turned her grief into action, first in helping form a support group for the families of 9-11 victims, then seeing to it that the commission was formed and its recommendations adopted.
Fetchet said work remains to see the commission’s 41 recommendations carried out.
“Change is difficult. Stakeholders in the intelligence community must willingly relinquish power and move away from turf battles. The 9-11 legislation cannot be misinterpreted or sabotaged behind the scenes while the existing intelligence community claims to be cooperating,” Fetchet said.
She also wants four additional recommendations addressed. She wants homeland security funding assigned on the basis of actual risk; congressional oversight streamlined; a strong, independent civil liberties board created; and more done to improve international relationships, which she views as the core root of the fight against terrorism.
Fetchet now views it as her moral obligation to make the country safer.
Shays told the students he believes the work of the 9-11 commission borders on sacred.
“We now need to make sure [the recommendations] are implemented properly,” he said.
Lieberman told audience members it’s largely up to them to take up the charge to respond to the commission’s report.
In addition to reorganizing the intelligence community, Lieberman said he supports measures to create an international youth opportunity fund that would help create better schools in Muslim countries.
Second, he wants more exchanges between students and faculty in Muslim countries and the United States.
He also wants what he calls the “Marshal Plan for the Muslim World,” something that would provide grants to create “civil societies” in the Middle East.
Elise Taylor, a Yale freshman from Tucson, Ariz., admits she hasn’t read the report, and so she didn’t come to the discussion with firm opinions about the commission’s work.
After hearing Lieberman, she said she’s not sure the panelists accomplished as much as they needed to.
John Orman, a Fairfield University professor who has said he may challenge Lieberman for the Democratic nomination for his seat, was also in the audience.
Orman, a researcher on presidential accountability and secrecy, said he attended the event to “hear Chris and Joe talk about national security.”
“We had a huge national intelligence failure with 9-11 and then, a year later, another massive intelligence failure with weapons of mass destruction: one administration, two huge intelligence failures,” Orman said.
Linda Conner Lambeck, who covers regional education issues, can be reached at 330-6218.
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