9/11 Families Plead: Why no accountability?

[stickdog]

http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/shared/news/91103/911families.html

Last fall's hearings revealed grave intelligence lapses, yet no one was held accountable for failing to communicate vital information about the al-Qaida operatives who carried out the attacks, for failing to share information between agencies, for failing to take seriously the terrorist organization's intention to use planes as bombs. "There are a whole slew of government agencies and officials who should be held responsible for what happened, yet I don't see any sign of mea culpa or any sign of anyone being held accountable," said Kristin Breitweiser, whose husband Ron died on the 94th floor of the second World Trade Center Tower.

Breitweiser and a group of other widows appear on Capitol Hill so frequently in their search for accountability that lawmakers and public officials know them by first name. Sometimes they testify. Sometimes they just listen. Sometimes they buttonhole lawmakers in marble halls of the Capitol. Many times, they walk away in disgust with their questions unanswered.

The most frustrating part of the search for accountability is that no one wants to take responsibility for what happened, said Monica Gabrielle, whose husband died in the World Trade Center. Gabrielle wants to know why the government didn't send planes into the sky after the first plane struck to intercept the second plane headed for the World Trade Center, the plane headed for the Pentagon and the one that crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania.

The questions that stump her: What did the FBI and CIA know about the hijackers before they carried out their attacks? Why didn't FBI headquarters take seriously warnings from its field offices about radical Islamic followers training at flight schools?