Former FBI Director Blasts Ashcroft For Ignoring Terrorist Threat Warnings

Democracy Now: At the start of the day, Philip Zelikow, executive director of the 9/11 Commission, delivered a scathing report on the FBI's performance before and after the 9/11 attacks and on Ashcroft's role in the bureau's shortcomings.

Zelikow reported that Dale Watson, the FBI's counterterrorism deputy, asked Ashcroft for more money, and Ashcroft turned him down. Watson also "fell off his chair" when he read Ashcroft's formal list of the Justice Department's top five priorities and realized that not one of them concerned terrorism.

Commission chairman Thomas Kean said the FBI "failed and it failed and it failed and it failed. This is an agency that does not work. It makes you angry. And I don't know how to fix it."