Jersey Girls
Encyclopedia
The Jersey Girls or Jersey Widows refers to four American
women who lost their husbands in the September 11 attacks. All four, Kristen Breitweiser
, Patty Casazza, Lorie Van Auken, and Mindy Kleinberg, were residents of New Jersey
, and helped lobby the U.S. government to carry out an investigation into the terrorist attacks, resulting in the formation of the 9/11 Commission
and the subsequent report released by the Commission.
, whose members were instrumental in the creation of the 9/11 Commission
and in pressing the commission to oversee a thorough and credible investigation. According to Matthew Purdy of The New York Times: "The commission grew largely out of pressure from families of victims, including four New Jersey widows who call themselves 'the Jersey Girls.' It's no mistake that the White House put New Jersey's most popular politician [Tom Kean] in charge."
Kean became the Commission's Chairman after Henry Kissinger
resigned the position; according to Peter Lance, "The Jersey Girls could take some of the credit for his hasty departure." Van Auken told Lance:
A few months before the Commission released its report, Kean said that the Jersey Girls "call me all the time. They monitor us, they follow our progress, they've provided us with some of the best questions we've asked. I doubt very much if we would be in existence without them."
to the position of Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission was also troubling to the Jersey Girls who demanded his resignation. They cited close personal ties with the Bush family and the National Security Advisor as conflicts of interest. Mindy Kleinberg said, "As executive director, he has pretty much the most important job on the commission. He hires the staff, he sets the direction and focus, he chooses witnesses at the hearings." Joe Conason wrote that the widows "fear that even with the best of intentions, Zelikow's connections to the Bush White House will 'taint the validity' of the commission's final report. Their demand that he resign or be fired has been rejected by the commission's co-chairmen, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean and former Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton. 'We respectfully disagree with them,' replied Al Felzenberg, the commission's press spokesman, who said Zelikow was chosen 'for his scholarly credentials and his knowledge of national security issues.' He hastened to praise the widows for doing 'a very positive thing,' adding that while he understood their concerns, he expected that "they're not going to be satisfied with everything we do."
they helped form, the Jersey Girls monitored and often criticized the 9/11 Commission after they lobbied successfully for its creation. The Jersey Girls pressured the U.S. government for months to have National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testify in front of the Commission; when she refused to testify under oath in March 2004, "they walked out in silent protest." The White House, in a "dramatic about-face," gave in and Rice testified.
When it became clear that the Commission had omitted crucial information from its report, the widows called for a new independent panel. "I'm very disturbed, and I want to get some answers," said Breitweiser. "I want to know what the truth is." She called the 2004 findings "an utterly hollow report."
on July 22, 2005 In Lorie Van Auken's statement she said this of the 9/11 Commission
Report:
wrote in the New York Times that "The phenomenon has sufficiently alarmed the White House that earlier in the month its media allies tried to discredit the 9/11 families, particularly the so-called 'Jersey Girls,' the four telegenic suburban widows who have forced the administration to reverse its stonewalling of the 9/11 commission at nearly every juncture. Rush Limbaugh labeled Kristen Breitweiser a Democratic operative. Bill O'Reilly sounded the alarm that 'some 9/11 families have aligned themselves with the far left.' But this stab at damage control went nowhere." In her 2006 book Godless: The Church of Liberalism
, conservative commentator Ann Coulter
created a firestorm of controversy with her remarks about the Jersey Girls. Coulter wrote:
These statements received national attention after an interview on The Today Show, and were widely criticized. The Jersey Girls themselves also responded critically to Coulter's remarks. Kristen Breitweiser stated, "I'd like her to meet my daughter and tell her how anyone could enjoy their father's death... She sounds like a very disturbed, unraveled person." Lorie Van Auken said that "she was stunned by the vitriol." She said, "Having my husband burn alive in a building brought me no joy. Watching it unfold on national TV and seeing it repeated endlessly was beyond what I could describe. Telling my children they would never see their father again was not fun. And we had no plans to divorce." Nevertheless, Coulter has repeated her criticism of the Jersey Girls. "I feel sorry for all the widows of 9/11...[but] I do not believe that sanctifies their political message....They have attacked Bush, they have attacked Condoleezza Rice, they're cutting campaign commercials for Kerry. But we can't respond because their husbands died . . . I think it's one of the ugliest things the left has done...this idea that you need some sort of personal authenticity in order to make a political point..."
The New York Daily News reported that the Jersey Girls "tried to stay above the name-calling fray" by emphasizing that "the nation shouldn't focus on Coulter's words but on security problems like porous borders, wasteful Homeland Security funding and intelligence agencies that don't work together. 'Our only motivation ever was to make our nation safer,' they said in a statement. 'We have been slandered. Contrary to Ms. Coulter's statements, there was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive. There was no happiness in telling our children that their fathers were never coming home again. We adored these men and miss them every day.'" And Senator Hillary Clinton found it "unimaginable that anyone in the public eye could launch a vicious, mean-spirited attack on people whom I've known over the last four and a half years to be concerned deeply about the safety and security of our country."
After the 9/11 Commission issued its report, the Jersey Girls pressured the Administration to follow its recommendations. They specifically commended the Commission for not politicizing blame in the report. "The USS Cole was bombed under Clinton's watch, and 9/11 happened under Bush's watch," said Rosemary Dillard. "I don't blame either administration; I blame the people who were reporting to them." As the 2004 election neared, the widows criticized Bush for the failure to enact the recommendations of the commission; many interpreted this as an endorsement of Bush's opponent John Kerry; the New York Times reported, "In a statement clearly meant to influence voters in next week's election, the group did not explicitly endorse Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, but said Mr. Bush had 'allowed members of his own party to derail the legislative process.'" There were other 9/11 victim's families who supported the Bush campaign; Debra Burlingame, whose brother flew in the plane that was crashed into the Pentagon, responded to the widows: "The Jersey Girls criticized President Bush because he wasn't rounding up Arabs in airport lounges before Sept. 11. These are the same people who are now decrying the use of the Patriot Act."
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
women who lost their husbands in the September 11 attacks. All four, Kristen Breitweiser
Kristen Breitweiser
Kristen Breitweiser is a lawyer and one of the Jersey Girls, four women from New Jersey who were widowed when their husbands were killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks and subsequently researched the policy and intelligence failures that led up to the attacks. She was a member of the Family...
, Patty Casazza, Lorie Van Auken, and Mindy Kleinberg, were residents of New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, and helped lobby the U.S. government to carry out an investigation into the terrorist attacks, resulting in the formation of the 9/11 Commission
9/11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks", including preparedness for and the immediate response to...
and the subsequent report released by the Commission.
Establishment of the 9/11 Commission
Survivors and family members of the victims were the most vocal and persistent in the call for the creation of an independent commission to investigate the 9/11 attacks. The leaders of several 9/11 family groups began to work together to lobby political leaders. The Jersey Girls were part of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee9/11 Family Steering Committee
The 9/11 Family Steering Committee was an organization of twelve relatives of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. Members of the Committee included the Jersey Girls...
, whose members were instrumental in the creation of the 9/11 Commission
9/11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks", including preparedness for and the immediate response to...
and in pressing the commission to oversee a thorough and credible investigation. According to Matthew Purdy of The New York Times: "The commission grew largely out of pressure from families of victims, including four New Jersey widows who call themselves 'the Jersey Girls.' It's no mistake that the White House put New Jersey's most popular politician [Tom Kean] in charge."
Kean became the Commission's Chairman after Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...
resigned the position; according to Peter Lance, "The Jersey Girls could take some of the credit for his hasty departure." Van Auken told Lance:
We were shocked. Kissinger had huge conflicts of interest -- major dealings with the Saudis... The day before he resigned, we had a meeting with him in his office in Manhattan. Kristen [Breitweiser] had done impeccable research. She'd looked up all of his companies. So I asked him, 'Mr. Kissinger, do you have any Saudi clients?' He mumbled something. And then he asked if someone would pour him some coffee. So then I said, 'Do you happen to have any clients by the name of bin Laden? He almost fell off the couch.
A few months before the Commission released its report, Kean said that the Jersey Girls "call me all the time. They monitor us, they follow our progress, they've provided us with some of the best questions we've asked. I doubt very much if we would be in existence without them."
Appointment of Philip D. Zelikow
The eventual appointment of Philip D. ZelikowPhilip D. Zelikow
Philip D. Zelikow is an American diplomat, academic and author. He has worked as the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, and Counselor of the United States Department of State...
to the position of Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission was also troubling to the Jersey Girls who demanded his resignation. They cited close personal ties with the Bush family and the National Security Advisor as conflicts of interest. Mindy Kleinberg said, "As executive director, he has pretty much the most important job on the commission. He hires the staff, he sets the direction and focus, he chooses witnesses at the hearings." Joe Conason wrote that the widows "fear that even with the best of intentions, Zelikow's connections to the Bush White House will 'taint the validity' of the commission's final report. Their demand that he resign or be fired has been rejected by the commission's co-chairmen, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean and former Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton. 'We respectfully disagree with them,' replied Al Felzenberg, the commission's press spokesman, who said Zelikow was chosen 'for his scholarly credentials and his knowledge of national security issues.' He hastened to praise the widows for doing 'a very positive thing,' adding that while he understood their concerns, he expected that "they're not going to be satisfied with everything we do."
Criticism of the Commission
As part of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee9/11 Family Steering Committee
The 9/11 Family Steering Committee was an organization of twelve relatives of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. Members of the Committee included the Jersey Girls...
they helped form, the Jersey Girls monitored and often criticized the 9/11 Commission after they lobbied successfully for its creation. The Jersey Girls pressured the U.S. government for months to have National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testify in front of the Commission; when she refused to testify under oath in March 2004, "they walked out in silent protest." The White House, in a "dramatic about-face," gave in and Rice testified.
When it became clear that the Commission had omitted crucial information from its report, the widows called for a new independent panel. "I'm very disturbed, and I want to get some answers," said Breitweiser. "I want to know what the truth is." She called the 2004 findings "an utterly hollow report."
Congressional testimony
The Jersey Widows testified for a hearing led by congresswoman Cynthia McKinneyCynthia McKinney
Cynthia Ann McKinney is a former US Congresswoman and a member of the Green Party since 2007. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives. In 2008, the Green Party nominated McKinney for President of the United States...
on July 22, 2005 In Lorie Van Auken's statement she said this of the 9/11 Commission
9/11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks", including preparedness for and the immediate response to...
Report:
- And finally, without compromising our national security, it would have reported all of its findings, with its redactions blacked out and submitted to the American people. In essence, the Commission could have produced a final product where the resulting conclusions and recommendations could be trusted. Instead, at the end of the day, what we got were some statements that truly insulted the intelligence of the American people. Violated our loved ones’ memories, and might end up hurting us, one day soon.
- One such statement is that 9/11 was a 'failure of imagination.' A failure of whose imagination? What exactly does that mean? When you have a CIA director with his hair on fire, a system blinking red, 52 FAA warnings, an August 6th, 2001 PDBPresident's Daily BriefThe President's Daily Brief , sometimes incorrectly referred to as the President's Daily Briefing or the President's Daily Bulletin, is a top-secret document produced each morning for the President of the United States...
entitled 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the United States', leads on several 9/11 hijackers including Alhazmi, Almihdhar and Marwan Al-ShehhiMarwan al-ShehhiMarwan Yousef Mohamed Rashid Lekrab al-Shehhi was the hijacker-pilot of United Airlines Flight 175, crashing the plane into the South Tower of the World Trade Center as part of the September 11 attacks....
, warnings from many foreign governments, a Phoenix MemoPhoenix MemoThe Phoenix memo is a letter sent to FBI headquarters on July 10, 2001 by FBI special agent Kenneth Williams recommending the assembling of a worldwide listing of civil aviation schools...
warning of Islamic extremists taking flying lessons, the arrest of would-be terrorist Zacarias MoussaouiZacarias MoussaouiZacarias Moussaoui is a French citizen who was convicted of conspiring to kill citizens of the US as part of the September 11 attacks...
, facts imparted to one agent, Agent Frasca at the RFU at the FBI, 9/11 was truly a failure alright.
Political controversy
The Jersey Girls have been the target of attacks at various times. In 2004, Frank RichFrank Rich
Frank Rich is an American essayist and op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times from 1980, when he was appointed its chief theatre critic, until 2011...
wrote in the New York Times that "The phenomenon has sufficiently alarmed the White House that earlier in the month its media allies tried to discredit the 9/11 families, particularly the so-called 'Jersey Girls,' the four telegenic suburban widows who have forced the administration to reverse its stonewalling of the 9/11 commission at nearly every juncture. Rush Limbaugh labeled Kristen Breitweiser a Democratic operative. Bill O'Reilly sounded the alarm that 'some 9/11 families have aligned themselves with the far left.' But this stab at damage control went nowhere." In her 2006 book Godless: The Church of Liberalism
Godless: The Church of Liberalism
Godless: The Church of Liberalism is a book by best-selling author and conservative columnist Ann Coulter, published in 2006. The book is an argument against American liberalism, which Coulter regards as so anti-scientific and faith-based that it amounts to a "primitive religion" which she claims...
, conservative commentator Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter
Ann Hart Coulter is an American lawyer, conservative social and political commentator, author, and syndicated columnist. She frequently appears on television, radio, and as a speaker at public events and private events...
created a firestorm of controversy with her remarks about the Jersey Girls. Coulter wrote:
They first came together to complain that the $1.6 million average settlement to be paid to 9/11 victims' families by the government was not large enough... These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities... These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them. ... I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much ... the Democrat ratpack gals endorsed John Kerry for president ... cutting campaign commercials... how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpiesHarpyIn Greek mythology, a harpy was one of the winged spirits best known for constantly stealing all food from Phineas...
? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up and appear in PlayboyPlayboyPlayboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
."
These statements received national attention after an interview on The Today Show, and were widely criticized. The Jersey Girls themselves also responded critically to Coulter's remarks. Kristen Breitweiser stated, "I'd like her to meet my daughter and tell her how anyone could enjoy their father's death... She sounds like a very disturbed, unraveled person." Lorie Van Auken said that "she was stunned by the vitriol." She said, "Having my husband burn alive in a building brought me no joy. Watching it unfold on national TV and seeing it repeated endlessly was beyond what I could describe. Telling my children they would never see their father again was not fun. And we had no plans to divorce." Nevertheless, Coulter has repeated her criticism of the Jersey Girls. "I feel sorry for all the widows of 9/11...[but] I do not believe that sanctifies their political message....They have attacked Bush, they have attacked Condoleezza Rice, they're cutting campaign commercials for Kerry. But we can't respond because their husbands died . . . I think it's one of the ugliest things the left has done...this idea that you need some sort of personal authenticity in order to make a political point..."
The New York Daily News reported that the Jersey Girls "tried to stay above the name-calling fray" by emphasizing that "the nation shouldn't focus on Coulter's words but on security problems like porous borders, wasteful Homeland Security funding and intelligence agencies that don't work together. 'Our only motivation ever was to make our nation safer,' they said in a statement. 'We have been slandered. Contrary to Ms. Coulter's statements, there was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive. There was no happiness in telling our children that their fathers were never coming home again. We adored these men and miss them every day.'" And Senator Hillary Clinton found it "unimaginable that anyone in the public eye could launch a vicious, mean-spirited attack on people whom I've known over the last four and a half years to be concerned deeply about the safety and security of our country."
After the 9/11 Commission issued its report, the Jersey Girls pressured the Administration to follow its recommendations. They specifically commended the Commission for not politicizing blame in the report. "The USS Cole was bombed under Clinton's watch, and 9/11 happened under Bush's watch," said Rosemary Dillard. "I don't blame either administration; I blame the people who were reporting to them." As the 2004 election neared, the widows criticized Bush for the failure to enact the recommendations of the commission; many interpreted this as an endorsement of Bush's opponent John Kerry; the New York Times reported, "In a statement clearly meant to influence voters in next week's election, the group did not explicitly endorse Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, but said Mr. Bush had 'allowed members of his own party to derail the legislative process.'" There were other 9/11 victim's families who supported the Bush campaign; Debra Burlingame, whose brother flew in the plane that was crashed into the Pentagon, responded to the widows: "The Jersey Girls criticized President Bush because he wasn't rounding up Arabs in airport lounges before Sept. 11. These are the same people who are now decrying the use of the Patriot Act."
Media appearances
The Jersey Widows were interviewed on the television series NOW on PBS and in the 2006 documentary 9/11: Press for Truth9/11: Press for Truth
9/11: Press for Truth is a 2006 documentary film about the September 11 attacks on the United States, directed by the American filmmaker Ray Nowosielski, and partially based on The Terror Timeline, by Paul Thompson.-Development and release:...
.
Recognition
Kristen Breitweiser won the Ron Ridenhour Prize for "truth-telling" in 2005 for her work with the Jersey Girls.See also
- One World Trade Center tenants
- Two World Trade Center tenants
- 9/11 Commission9/11 CommissionThe National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks", including preparedness for and the immediate response to...