9/11 probe eerily similar to Pearl Harbor inquiry

[Kadie]

9/11 probe eerily similar to Pearl Harbor inquiry
An earlier look into how America was caught napping

Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Washington -- The special committee formed to investigate what the president called an "unprovoked and dastardly attack'' on the United States waded deep into controversy, interviewed dozens of witnesses and produced a 10 million- word record.

It issued a final report, blaming many involved in U.S. national security for failing to do their jobs and recommended sweeping changes to prevent a similar attack in the future.

In many ways, this sounds like the current bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which is due to report by late July. But it's the tale of Congress' Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, which in 1945-46 conducted the last of a host of inquiries, and the most complete, into Japan's Dec. 7, 1941, bombing of the U. S. Pacific fleet in Hawaii.

The similarities between the reports of the two commissions are striking. If a reader substitutes the words "Sept. 11'' for "Pearl Harbor,'' at times the voluminous final report of the Pearl Harbor inquiry can induce a serious case of deja vu, raising the question of how much a nation caught napping in 1941 -- and again 60 years later -- has really learned.

more... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/04/28/MNG126C6HG1.DTL