Bush Names Kissinger to Head Sept. 11 Commission; Man Arrested After Hijack Attempt in France; Mass. Governor-Elect Seeks Aid for Convention Security

Bush Names Kissinger to Head Sept. 11 Commission

President Bush signed legislation creating a new independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks Wednesday and named former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to lead the panel. According to an AP report in todays New York Times, the commission has a broad mandate, building on the limited joint inquiry conducted by the House and Senate intelligence committees. The independent panel will have 18 months to examine issues such as aviation security and border problems, along with intelligence. Bush did not set as a primary goal for the commission to uncover mistakes or lapses of the government that could have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks. Instead, he said This commission will help me and future presidents to understand … the nature of the threats we face.Man Arrested After Hijack Attempt in FranceReuters today, French police arrested a man in Lyon, France, yesterday after he tried to hijack an Alitalia flight carrying 57 passengers from Bologna to Paris. Italian news agency Ansa said the hijacker was believed to be an Italian. According to the BBC, French officials say the man claims to be a member of the al-Qaeda network. The plane landed at Lyon where the man surrendered and passengers were freed unharmed, the national police service told BBC News Online.

According to

Mass. Governor-Elect Seeks Aid for Convention Security Boston Globe reports that Massachusetts Republican Governor-elect Mitt Romney says he will lobby the Bush administration to take over security at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Romney will ask that the convention be declared a national special security event, which would shift security oversight from Boston police to the U.S. Secret Service, along with some of the costs. Because Boston is hosting the first national political convention since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, security analysts and a Democratic source close to the process told the Globe yesterday it is likely the designation will be granted to the convention, along with the Republican National Convention the following month. The decision of whether to grant the designation will be made by the new Department of Homeland Security. The Democratic source said that Tom Ridge, named secretary of the agency this week, has already indicated that the convention will win the designation.

Todays