"Bush Bracing for 9/11 Panel's Report"

[GreenPartyVoter]

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush said Wednesday his administration is doing everything possible to prevent another terrorist attack as he braced for a report sharply critical of the government's intelligence-gathering before Sept. 11.

"I look forward to receiving the report," Bush said in the Rose Garden as he signed a bill at the White House to develop and stockpile vaccines and other antidotes to biological and chemical weapons. He made his remarks one day before the independent commission investigating the terrorist attacks releases a 500-page report detailing significant intelligence lapses and other governmental failures that allowed the terrorist hijackings to succeed.

"I will continue to work with the Congress and state and local governments to build on the homeland security improvements we have already made," Bush said. "Every American can be certain that their government will continue doing everything in our power to prevent a terrorist attack, and if the terrorists do strike we will be better prepared to defend our people because of the good law I sign today."

Commission Chairman Thomas Kean, a former New Jersey governor, and Democratic Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman, were to brief President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, White House Chief of Staff Andy Card and White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez on the panel's findings later Wednesday, presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said. The chairmen are to personally present Bush with a copy of the report on Thursday.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20040721/D83V8BAG0.html