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Quick action sought on 9/11 report

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, JULY 23. Senior lawmakers cutting across party lines have called for quick Congressional action on some of the recommendations made by the National Commission looking into the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. But the question is if they would wait until after the November elections to bring about changes.

The Commission was critical of the fashion in which the Congress has addressed issues of national security including allocation of funding.

The two-fold criticism was that it did not properly oversee intelligence agencies including failing to identify and resolve apparent problems in national security and domestic agencies; and that when it came to funding Capitol Hill treated homeland security as a "general revenue" programme and preferred an approach to funding based on threat perceptions with New York and Washington D.C. at the top of the list.

Session mooted

Republican and Democratic Senators have even suggested that perhaps they should get into a special session to discuss the report. "Delay is our enemy and time is important.

And that's why I think it's so important that...if necessary let's do a special session," said the Republican Senator John McCain. reference to time has to do with the fact that the National Commission report came on the eve of a six week Congressional recess;law makers will return to Washington after Labour Day in the first week of September;wind up this session in the first few days of October and head to their respective campaign trails.

The President, George W Bush, hailed the report on Thursday and said his administration would be looking at the recommendations seriously.

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