Associated Press
New York (AP) -- The Sept. 11 commission had done “good work” in its investigation of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center but some commissioners were ill-informed and prone to making attention-grabbing remarks, said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
Kelly was responding to comments made last week by Republican appointee John F. Lehman. During the commission hearings in Greenwich Village, Lehman called failings in the city’s emergency communications systems “a scandal” and “not worthy of the Boy Scouts.”
“It was really a ludicrous comment, well over the top,” Kelly said. “John Lehman is somebody who certainly knows how to get a headline and I think that’s what that was aimed at.”
Lehman has said his comments were misunderstood and that he was not trying to criticize those who led the Sept. 11 response effort.
Yet Kelly said the remark betrayed a degree of ignorance on the part of some commissioners.
“I think the commissioners needed to do a lot more homework themselves. ... They were able to make some pretty emotional statements but it really wasn’t based on knowledge,” Kelly said in an interview broadcast Sunday on WNBC-TV’s “News Forum.”
He said alleged difficulties in communication between the fire and police departments -- a factor some critics say may have cost lives by delaying evacuation of the trade center buildings -- had been “greatly overblown.”
Whatever problems did exist had been addressed, Kelly said.