WASHINGTON — While missteps by the CIA and FBI have come under harsh public scrutiny by a commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, the independent panel is quietly amassing evidence of a decade of failures by a third institution: the Pentagon.
The nation's military has so far largely escaped criticism for its counter-terrorism performance in the years leading up to the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon.
But sources familiar with the commission's inner workings said the panel increasingly believes the Pentagon failed to adequately respond to the growing military threat of Al Qaeda. They said Pentagon ineffectiveness in both the Clinton administration and the current Bush administration was as much to blame for permitting the Sept. 11 attacks as inept law enforcement and intelligence efforts, a conclusion shared by many current and former U.S. officials and counter-terrorism experts.
When the commission releases its findings in late July, it is expected to conclude that both administrations failed on a wide array of military fronts, not just in the use of conventional force but in the sharing of intelligence and creation of special operations and technology to respond to the new threat posed by stateless terrorism.
Outright military action against terrorists would have to be ordered by the president. But critics fault military leaders for discouraging such actions and failing to present alternatives.
In private, the commission also is raising questions about the Defense Department's apparent lack of readiness on Sept. 11 to protect Americans from a military-style attack on the homeland.
On that day, a hijacked commercial jetliner was able to crash into the Pentagon building, despite months of elevated indications of an Al Qaeda attack and long-standing criticism that the military lacked a domestic security plan, the sources said.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, senior Pentagon officials in the Clinton and Bush administrations have defended their counter-terrorism efforts, saying they were hamstrung by a lack of "actionable" intelligence from the CIA, indecision by political leaders in the White House and Congress and reluctance by policymakers to spend money and take risks associated with a military response to Al Qaeda.
