Initially, only three million dollars was allotted, compared with 50 million dollars allotted to investigating the Challenger explosion. [and $100 million dollars investigating Clinton's sexual exploits] --Lorie Van Auken, one of the Four Jersey Girls
9/11 victim family members Lorie Van Auken and Bob McIlvaine testified at the Toronto Hearings. Lorie embarrassed the government into creating the 9/11 Commission. Bob talked about how his sons injuries must have been caused by explosives in the WTC lobby. https://t.co/3iKHFBps9N
— Kevin Ryan (@KevinRyan911) December 13, 2024
From Testimony of Lorie Van Auken
There would eventually be three different versions of NORAD’s timeline of their 9/11 response, but on September 18, 2001, the first version was released to the public. Since it seemed that there was little, if any, military intervention during these attacks, the obvious question became: what was the military response on 9/11 supposed to look like? We learned that NORAD had certain protocols to follow for planes that have lost radio contact, and for planes that are off-course. There is a separate set of protocols for hijacked airliners. With all these protocols already in place, how could four hijacked commercial airliners fly around the skies of the U.S. for so long with no military response? How were the hijackers able to evade our country’s elaborate defenses?
. . .
As the final language for a bill that would give us the 9/11 Commission was almost agreed upon, we began to notice a lot of foot dragging. Vice President Dick Cheney had clearly been against having an inquiry from the start, and was working behind the scenes to keep things from moving forward. Cheney was often seen on TV with some scary reason for why we couldn’t have an investigation into 9/11. One time, while we were all together in Rep. Porter Goss’s office, Goss got a phone call from Cheney telling him to “keep negotiating” with us. Goss looked flustered by that phone call, and we were beginning to learn how Washington worked.
We finally got fed up with the intense run-around that we were getting with everyone blaming everyone else for the delay. We couldn’t take it anymore and asked Senator Lieberman (D-CT) to organize a meeting with all of the involved parties in one room, and to our surprise, he obliged. During that gathering it became painfully apparent to everyone that it was the Bush/Cheney White House that was causing the stalemate. As the meeting wore on, and it appeared that once again there wouldn’t be an agreement to the terms, all of the 9/11 family members that were in attendance stood up in solidarity saying that we would not leave without an agreement on the legislation. The press was outside waiting to hear about the outcome, and the White House knew it. That was a critical moment and a turning point for us.
Finally, the House passed a version of our legislation for an independent investigation. When the Senate voted on their version of the 9/11 Commission bill, we were invited to Washington to witness the event. As the Senate voted on the 9/11 Commission legislation, we were there cheering.
Then, we learned about conference committees, where the two houses of Congress would mesh the versions of the legislation that each had voted on. We wanted two years for the investigation, but got only 18 months. Initially, only three million dollars was allotted, compared with 50 million dollars allotted to investigating the Challenger explosion. We wanted subpoena power for each Commissioner, but with pressure from the Bush/Cheney White House, there was an agreement made that would allow subpoena power only if the Chair and Vice Chair OR at least six Commissioners voted for it. This was a political body, split between five democrats and five republicans. Getting six commissioners to agree to ask for a subpoena would have meant that one person had to jump over to the other side, which was highly unlikely.
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