by Gabrielle Russon

While the nation is safer domestically since Sept. 11--- because of better trained airport screeners and heightened intelligence capabilities--- the United States is failing on the international front, the two former leaders of the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks said today.

“We’ve made some progress but still have a very long way to go,” Thomas Kean, the commission’s former chairman, said at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars here.

To gain the upper-hand in winning the war on terror, U.S. foreign policy needs to beckon to Muslims, said Lee Hamilton, the commission’s former vice chairman and a former Indiana congressman.

“American foreign policy has to convey to Islam that we want to help Muslims achieve a better life,” Hamilton said.

He called terrorism a “generational problem” that goes deeper than just eliminating al Qaeda's leaders.

“The long-term---the durable threat---is the radical Islamic young people,” Hamilton said. “If you’re going to win the war on terror, you’re going to have to deal with these hundreds of millions of Muslims from across the world."

Kean suggested pushing for Israeli peace efforts and closing the Guantanamo Bay prison housing captured terrorism suspects, which he called a “black eye to the United States and the Muslim world.” He also suggested using foreign aid, diplomacy and sending more students overseas for educational exchanges.

While the threat of terrorism hasn’t disappeared, even though no attacks have occurred on U.S. soil since 2001, both men said the government’s urgency has diminished.

Hamilton said there still are no methods for detecting nuclear weapons, in case Al Qaida ever managed to obtain them and tried to get them into the U.S.

“This threat is in a class all by itself,” he said. “Therefore, it should be the absolute priority.”