Ashcroft Testifies Before 9/11 Commission
9/11 Panel Faults FBI, CIA Efforts Against Terrorism

WASHINGTON (AP) – In a veiled swipe at the Clinton administration, Attorney General John Ashcroft testified Tuesday the nation was stunned by the Sept. 11 attacks because ”for nearly a decade our government had blinded itself to our enemies.”

Appearing before a commission investigating the worst attacks in the nation’s history, Ashcroft also said he moved quickly once in office to overturn a ”failed policy” that he said allowed American agents to capture terrorist leader Osama bin Laden but not assassinate him.

Former Attorney General Janet Reno, Attorney General John Ashcroft, former FBI Director Louis Freeh and FBI Director Robert Mueller are today’s witnesses.

In a nationally televised appearance, Ashcroft said the government had become bound up in legal restrictions that grew steadily more restrictive. ”Even if they could have penetrated bin Laden’s training camps, they would have needed a battery of lawyers” to take action, he said dismissively. Full Article

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