What Washington's congressional delegation is saying

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"A lot needs to be done to improve homeland security.... Congress needs to help and step up here, but the budget is in such disastrous shape, it's hard to respond to some of the instabilities."
— Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton

"I think the commission's recommendations to ... appoint a single director of intelligence, is really common sense. I think there's also a need to address the culture within those agencies."
— Rep. Brian Baird, D-Vancouver

"I'm hopeful that Congress will convene hearings as soon as possible to try to flesh out these ideas ... It's agonizing to look back and think, maybe we could have done things differently. Whether there's anything that really would have prevented this, we may never know."
— Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Bainbridge Island

"I think, whether it's a Republican or Democrat that's the next president of the United States, we need to deal with these matters.... It's distressing to read this thing and realize we knew quite a bit and because of turf battles the messages did not get sent back and forth for people to put it all together."
— Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle

"The commission report is a very somber read. ... The work of Congress and of the administration and the future administration is just beginning now that the report is done. I think Congress needs to take a serious look at itself."
— Rick Larsen, D-Lake Stevens

"Since 9/11 we have made great strides in improving our intelligence and security. ... We have come a long way — yet more work remains."
— Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Pasco

"Congress needs to step up and say, 'intelligence isn't a partisan matter.' We ought to make sure on the legislative side, we're doing what we need to do to keep the country safe."
— Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Spokane

"I hope that the immediate impact of this important report is a greater understanding of the threats we face, the failures we endured, and the need to move forward in our ongoing effort to keep the homeland secure."
— Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

"When we return in September, Congress ought to have hearings on recommendations and look at the quickest ways to implement them. Getting a standardized system for tracking people who've been identified as being previously involved in terrorist activity should be a high priority."
— Sen. Maria Cantwell, D- Wash.

Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Bellevue, did not respond to requests for comment.
 

Regional law-enforcement officials react

"We need to put turf aside and give up each other's information. ... We have not done a good job of sharing that, and we absolutely must."
— John McKay, the U.S. Attorney for the Western Washington District

"We have been provided the money. The trick for the local people is to have more control and direct that money to where we think would be more beneficial to our local community.... There are processes in place that do not allow me to direct it towards personnel. We would like to see that changed."
— Seattle Fire Chief Gregory Dean

"Our ability to prepare for and more importantly prevent future acts of terrorism will also rely on superior intelligence gathering, state of the art technology available to the street cop and an unwavering commitment to regional cooperation and preparedness in law enforcement."
— King County Sheriff David Reichert

Readers react

The next step is quite easy: re-elect President Bush. We need a president who is not going to wait around until terrorists wreck havoc on us. If a serious threat is perceived, we must issue a preemptive, first strike, not sit on our hands and wait until the body bags are being filled. I would tell the elected officials: We have a well-trained volunteer military force that knew the risks of causalities when raising their hand for the oath. Use them as they are trained and let the world know we will not wait for disaster — we will inflict serious pain on any country that plans or attempts to harm our citizens. We don't owe the rest of the world a thing when it comes to our security.
— Paul Carrozzo, Everett

The nation's next step is to continue to be vigilent and not slip into complacency. Money should be spent more on increasing security (training, manpower, organization, national and state strategies) at the airports, ports and at the borders than on faulty missiles and other Reagan-era Star Wars-like expensive experiments. That was 20 years ago and against a totally different kind of national threat! We need to adapt and get ahead.

Missiles didn't stop those planes from going into the Twin Towers. Missiles didn't stop those terrorists at the security checkpoint at the airport on 9-11. People did.

Also [we need] to organize all of our intelligence agencies into a simpler, more-efficient machine to gather information globally and stay ahead of the terrorist groups and their demented plots.

I think the agencies should contribute experts and field techs to one intelligence agency solely created to monitor and prevent terrorism toward America and Americans and other democratic nationals abroad. Maybe there is something already out there in our sprawling government structure.
— Katlin Hanson, Bellevue