Voices

A sampling of quotations from Wednesday’s hearing by the Sept. 11 commission:

‘It will take us another five years of work to have the kind of clandestine service our country needs.’ -- George J. Tenet, CIA director

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‘That report that you heard this morning was a damning report. Not of your actions or the actions of any of the really superb and dedicated people that you have, but it was a damning evaluation of a system that is broken, that doesn’t function.’ -- John F. Lehman, panel member, to Tenet.

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‘I think we can and are fixing what has been wrong with the FBI. We’ve got to put our house in order and we are putting our house in order.’ -- Robert S. Mueller, FBI director.

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‘We’ve had a terrific intelligence failure, and it gets worse as we probe a little deeper and learn more about it.’ --

Fred F. Fielding, panel member

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‘I would like to promise this commission, I’d like to promise the people who are listening to what we’re saying today, that I have now in place, because of the largess of Congress or the largess of the executive, I have in place what’s necessary to stop this from happening again. I can’t say that.’ --

James L. Pavitt, CIA deputy director of operations

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‘We would never send out men and women of the armed services into combat with antiquated weapons or communications systems. But yet that’s exactly what we were doing to the men and women of the CIA and the FBI.’ --

John S. Pistole, FBI executive assistant director for counterterrorism and counterintelligence.

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Source: Associated Press