Digesting the 9/11 Panel’s Report

The July 22 story “No Saudi Backing of 9/11 Found” states that “the Sept. 11 panel concluded that there was no evidence that the Saudi government or Saudi officials knew of or supported the plot to attack the United States.”

The question that should be asked is, “Did the Saudi government’s tolerance for the madrasas, or religious schools, where Saudis are taught to hate all who do not believe in their Wahhabi brand of Islam, contribute to the attack? The answer is certainly yes.

The Saudis have now also experienced terrorist attacks, and we have all paid the price for their indifference.

Brian Sheppard

Encino

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Re “Video Shows 9/11 Hijackers Clearing Security,” July 22: As far as catching sleeper terrorist cells, like the Sept. 11 terrorists, governments must use profiling and stop using politically correct security methods at airports, train stations and other transportation centers.

After some of the hijackers set off alarms at the airports, they should have been thoroughly searched, interrogated and banned from boarding their flights.

In the war on terrorism, you have to give up some civil liberties to save the lives of innocent people. The civil liberties of terrorists should not come before the lives of the innocent.

Tim Caravello

New York

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Before we all get stressed about the 10 missed opportunities to prevent Sept. 11, perhaps we should consider that even if we had stopped all the hijackers, Al Qaeda would probably have persisted and found another way, or another target or another method to take advantage of our pre-Sept. 11 innocence.

On the other hand, we may never know how many other attempts were successfully thwarted by otherwise routine denials of entry to the U.S. or of boarding of a plane, or by the arrest of some terrorist for a more minor offense.

Andy Pearlman

Marina del Rey

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Despite all the money spent on airport security, fancy computer systems and officials who refused to share warning signs, one thing would have succeeded in preventing the hijackings: reinforced cockpit doors.

Craig Carr

West Hills

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The commission report is welcome.

Can you imagine that all of this happened because the women who lost their husbands had the moral courage to buck every institutional instinct to avoid accountability and force this as an election-year issue?

The gratitude I feel is not for the public officials of our country, but for these women.

Karen Yukie Yamada

Wailuku, Hawaii

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The most remarkable aspect of the commission’s report is that, while its findings clearly indicated that there was a complete collapse of our intelligence apparatus, nobody was responsible.

Huh? Nobody was in charge? And these are the guys who keep preaching personal responsibility to the rest of us.

Sanford Thier

Marina del Rey