In response to questioning from Sen. Lieberman, he sets the context: 19 hijackers had seamlessly gotten into the country and carried out their mission – the only failure they experienced was due to the courage of the passengers on one of the flights.

It was clear that others must have assisted them – wittingly and unwittingly.

Everything we knew about al Qaeda suggested a real possibility that there would be more and, frankly, worse attacks.

With that background, the investigation was designed to be extraordinarily thorough on an unprecedentedly tight time frame. Included with that was to follow every single lead: pocket litter, telephone numbers, credit card receipts, etc.

Judge Chertoff did not participate in the decisions about where and how people who came up in the investigation should be detained if they were to be detained.

The Justice Department and the FBI performed very well overall – under very difficult circumstances. In NY, for example the physical conditions and lack of communications facilities were immensely challenging.

The problems that occurred involved getting the information needed to clear people of whatever there involvement might have been. They were not about the propriety of the arrests. All of those arrested were arrested in a manner that was consistent with the law. The immigration detainees were in violation of the immigration laws. Some others were in violation of the criminal law.

Chertoff was not at the time aware of any delays in permitting immigration detainees to have assistance of counsel, nor was he aware of allegations that prison guards abused prisoners.