|
|
|
|
A Slice of Life
by Francine Brokaw
In Touch With . . . Former Governor Thomas Kean
And The Path to 9/11
Former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean headed the 9/11 Commission that undertook the immense task of dissecting the terrorist attacks on the United States and coming up with suggestions on how to better secure the country. He supervised the upcoming two-part miniseries, The Path to 9/11, which will air on ABC September 10 and 11.
“It was five years ago this September that the United States was attacked on its own mainland soil for the first time since the War of 1812. On that day more people died than died at Pearl Harbor. The commission I headed was given a job by the Congress of the United States to tell the story of 9/11, and, secondly, and just as important, to make recommendations that we learned from that story of ways in which we could make the American people safer.”
“We looked over two million documents and interviewed over 3,000 people.” The report became a best-selling book. Governor Kean is enthusiastic about this miniseries. “What I like so much about this project is it tells a story of the conspiracy, and more people will see this than will ever read our report. So my hope is that if people see this and understand the plot and understand the recommendations that need to be implemented that we learned from the plot, it will be a better and safer country.”
The Governor is more than mildly passionate about the project which dramatizes the events that unfolded between the first failed World Trade Center bombing and the attacks that ultimately brought down the twin towers. The commission presented 41 recommendations to help deter future attacks. “My hope is that …after seeing this dramatized, after understanding when you see it happen in front of you, see it through the eyes of some of the people who were the main characters, all through this drama, from the first World Trade Center to 9/11, you understand better what happened. If you understand better what happened, I think you can work more effectively to make sure it doesn't happen again.” He points out that some legislation has already been passed, “but it's been very slow in the implementation. We have other legislation that hasn't yet been passed. All of it is necessary to help prevent another attack.”
It is the Governor’s hope that after seeing the miniseries, the public will be more motivated to push their elected officials to pass further legislation and implement the recommendations of the commission. “I think government officials are sometimes not willing to learn from the past unless, perhaps, some of their constituents help them. Government officials are enormously responsive to the public. We had a good wind behind our backs when the Commission first came out. We got through the first major reorganization of the United States government in 50 years,” he says proudly. That reorganization came immediately after the attacks of 9/11, but since then the reaction of the government has been mired in other issues. “We don't want to wait for another attack,” says Kean, “and if that happens, I think we will get those recommendations through very fast. [But] we don't want to wait that long.” It is his hope that this film will be the impetus to push through more of the recommendations, before we are hit again.
The events of 9/11 changed our world, whether we like it or not. Things are just not the same. Governor Kean admits that he has been pulled out twice while in line for a flight, and Cyrus Nowrasteh, the screenwriter and producer of the miniseries says that even though he is an American, his parents are Iranian and he doesn’t have any problem with ethnic profiling. So far he has not been stopped in an airport, but says, “it doesn't matter to me if I am. That's just part of what we learned from the report.”
As far as letting the public in on all the things the government is doing to help protect the people from terrorists, the Governor believes the public has the right to know, being that we are an open society. However he does feel there are some things that should remain secret, only because that is the only way some programs can better secure the people and the country, referring to the monetary tracking program that was brought to the public’s attention by the New York Times. That program was “something [that] was stopping some terrorists, and that probably should have been a secret program,” admits Kean.
As the viewers will see, there were many times the government could have stopped the progression of the terrorists and the attacks of 9/11, and there were times when Osama Bin Laden could have been killed, but those opportunities were never acted upon, which frustrates Kean.
“This miniseries is not evangelistic. This tells the story the same as the report does. But when the Congress asked ten of us, five Republican and five Democrats, to do this report, we became evangelists in our own right because we came to believe so strongly in these recommendations and the kind of things the public has to do, and we have done a lot of things, all ten of us, in various ways, to try to promote more public understanding, more understanding of the things that need to be done, more things that might push Congress or the administration into acting.
“My belief is that if this miniseries helps the public really to understand the story of 9/11 … Nobody's said our recommendations weren't the right thing to do. They're just not doing them.”
For Governor Kean, his nightmare is a terrorist with a nuclear weapon. This is a real concern for this man, who is doing everything in his power to keep this country safe. Even so, he says, “there will be another terrorist attack. Where or when? There’ll be another one and it will probably be [huge].” The Governor told this reporter, “I know nobody who’s an expert in this field who doesn’t believe there will be another attack. If it’s Al Qaeda, they plan for a long time and they want maximum damage. So they’re not content with an attack in subway or something like that. They want a big impression.”
Thomas Kean is a very nice man, and the bottom line is he knows more than any of us do what can and might happen and what must be done to keep this country safe. So, what do we tell our kids who panic over the thought of another terrorist attack? “Well, we’re a big country, and there will be an attack. But the chances of it actually hitting an individual are very, very small,” he says. This might not be a comfort to kids, but it is a reality. “And so you recognize the fact that some countries in many other parts of the world have been living with terrorism or something like terrorism for centuries. Even our friends in Great Britain with the Irish Republican Army, they’re used to having department stores in London blown up, and it became a part of their life, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be doing everything in our power to prevent it from happening. And that’s really our goal. Not necessarily to prevent everything from happening, but we had a lot of chances to disrupt the 9/11 attack and government failed to do that. And we want to make sure we’re doing the types of things now to disrupt a future attack. If we do it will save a lot of lives.”
It is the Governor's hope that people see the show and write and call their elected officials to demand that the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission be implemented as fast as possible. According to Kean, this is the best way to protect the country, and it is necessary in today's turbulent world.
© 2006 Francine Brokaw
Let's Talk About It!
Issues newsgroup
Join us to talk about this article!
|
|
|
