By Jesse J. Holland, Associated Press, 12/20/01

WASHINGTON -- An independent panel is needed to investigate the causes of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and why the government was caught asleep, Sens. Joe Lieberman and John McCain said Thursday.

The World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks were as damaging to America's psyche as the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy, and Congress created independent, bipartisan commissions to investigate and explain those events, the senators said.

The proposed National Commission on Terrorist Attacks would follow in the footsteps of those panels, said Lieberman, D-Conn., and McCain, R-Ariz., who urged Congress to establish it.

"I think the American people deserve it, just as they deserved a thorough and complete investigation with the assassination of President Kennedy, just as they needed a Tower Commission after Iran-Contra, just as they needed a commission after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln," said McCain. "Every major tragedy in America calls for a thorough and complete investigation."

"For this to be done right, it needs to be done by an independent citizens' commission that is totally nonpartisan and fully staffed and can find the truth," Lieberman said.

Under the senators' bill, the president would appoint the chairman and three other members of the commission, while Congress would appoint the other 10. No more than seven could be from the same political party.

The panel would be able to issue subpoenas and hold public and private hearings, the senators said. It also would not be limited to investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, but also America's foreign policy, the failure to detect the planned attacks in advance, the anthrax cases or wherever the investigation led, they said.

The House endorsed a similar provision in this year's intelligence authorization bill, but it was dropped during House-Senate negotiations. The House and Senate intelligence committee chairmen agreed it would be best for their panels to conduct the investigation as they determine how to reshape the intelligence community to meet new threats.

"There is resistance inside all of these agencies to an independent investigation," McCain said.

With the anti-terror war in Afghanistan winding down, "this is the right time to begin in earnest the process of finding answers to our questions," Lieberman said. "Determining the causes and circumstances of the terrorist attacks will ensure that those who lost their lives on the second American day of infamy did not die in vain."

Despite congressional interest in doing its own investigation next year, "neither the administration nor Congress is alone capable of conducting a thorough nonpartisan independent inquiry into what happened on September 11, or to propose far reaching measures to protect our people or our institutions," McCain said.

The commission's first report would be due within six months of its inception and a final report one year later.

"Clearly, if we're going to adequately protect America in the future, we're going to have to know what happened in the past," McCain added.

He and Lieberman said they were introducing the bill on the last week of the session to drum up public support for it next year.