Commission spokesman Al Felzenberg calls the panel's inquiry "the most important investigation ever done in American history, given its scope." The final report, due next May, will be "the definitive account of what took place on Sept. 11," he says, "how it could happen and what went wrong, as well as what worked and what did not work and what recommendation would we have for the American government and the American people to make it safer."

But the investigation almost never happened at all.

Family advocates complain it was created virtually in spite of the White House; they point to the extraordinary game of hardball the administration practiced right on the eve of last year's midterm elections when it derailed a bipartisan congressional deal to form the commission, citing concerns with its potential scope and subpoena power. Members of both parties who had already scheduled a press conference to announce the panel were stunned by the turn of events. Weeks after the 2002 election, and following a candlelight vigil by 9/11 victim families held in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House, the independent commission was finally formed, more than a year after the terrorists attacked.

"Bush begrudgingly signed [the commission] into law," complains one family advocate. "Since it was created, he's done everything to take the teeth out of it. His fingerprints and Karl Rove's are all over this."

"If President Bush and the administration are not happy with the independent commission, then it's their own fault because all they had to do was set up a commission on their own," adds Breitweiser. "But they didn't, so it was left to other people to make sure it got done. Undeniably the administration has dragged its feet."

In the past the White House has denied the charge, insisting it's cooperating with the commission. Yet even during hearings, that cooperation has seemed lackluster at best.

Unlike congressional inquiries, the commission's witnesses have not been asked to testify under oath. As a result, federal officials under Bush's command have not always been forthcoming. At their May 23 public hearing in Washington, commissioners were trying to piece together what, if any, defensive measures the government took on the morning of Sept. 11. Specifically, they wanted to know whether the military's North American Aerospace Defense Command, once notified by the Federal Aviation Administration, should have been able to scramble jets in order to intercept some of the hijacked aircraft. Yet 20 months after the attack, 9/11 commissioners still could not get straight answers from NORAD and FAA representatives who testified as to when the FAA notified NORAD about the wayward jets on the morning of 9/11.

Adding to the general confusion that day was baffling testimony by Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta. "I don't think we ever thought of an airplane being used as a missile," he told the commissioners. But it was widely reported last year that several government studies had warned of just such a scenario.

For months, the commission was struggling to get by on a minuscule budget of $3 million. That low funding and the yearlong delay in creating the commission stand in stark contrast to previous panels formed to investigate momentous disasters in American history.

For instance, on April 15, 1912, the Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg, killing approximately 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers. According to historians, Titanic survivors began disembarking in New York at 10 o'clock on the night of April 18. The next morning at 10:30, a special panel of the Senate Commerce Committee was gaveled into session inside the ornate East Room of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.

Last year, when Cheney called Daschle to urge him to limit any hearings into 9/11, the V.P. argued it would drain sources away from the war on terrorism. By contrast, just 11 days after Japanese bombers hit the U.S. with a sneak attack killing nearly 3,000 people, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order creating a commission to "ascertain and report the facts relating to the attack made by Japanese armed forces upon the Territory of Hawaii on December 7, 1941 ... and to provide bases for sound decisions whether any derelictions of duty or errors of judgment on the part of United States Army or Navy personnel contributed to such successes as were achieved by the enemy on the occasion mentioned." It was the first of eight government-led investigations into the Pearl Harbor.

The Warren Commission, headed by Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, was formed just seven days after President Kennedy was assassinated. Last February, after seven astronauts died when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated 200,000 feet above Texas, NASA's Columbia Accident Investigation Board was created 90 minutes after the incident; $50 million was immediately set aside for the probe. And in just four months, the board has already made public significant findings about the crash investigation.

By contrast, nearly two years after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the 9/11 commission only recently opened up its New York City office. The commission's budget has been increased to $14 million, but many experts say that's still far short of the sum needed to do the job right.

Given that perspective, there's a growing sense among some 9/11 advocates that the news media have let them -- and the nation -- down. "I'm very disappointed in the press," says Breitweiser. "I think it's disgusting the independent commission is doing the most important work for this nation and it's not even reported in the New York Times or on the nightly news. I've been scheduled to go on 'Meet the Press' and 'Hardball' so many times and I'm always canceled. Frankly I'd like nothing better than to go head to head with Dick Cheney on 'Meet the Press.' Because somebody needs to ask the questions and I don't understand why nobody is."

Among frustrated family members of Sept. 11 victims, there's a feeling they're losing the battle of time in their struggle to get answers from the Bush administration. "There's a very, very small window to effect changes," says one 9/11 widower, Bill Harvey. "And unfortunately, that window is closing."

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