Can we knock out Caspase-9 *and* avoid breast cancer phenotype in our mouse model?
The short answer is that it is likely a bad experiment; being that it would be expensive and is not likely to provide useful new information.

The long answer (i.e. why) is identifying an interesting target gene (e.g. caspase-9 in breast cancer) is only the first step, and considerable study of what is already known is required before planning an experiment (especially an expensive one that requires numerous mice).

Caspase-9 is a critical effector of apoptosis through the mitochondrial pathway. Many different signals such as DNA damage, Endoplasmic reticulum stress, etc induce cells to die through this pathway. This is important both in normal development and in preventing cancer. Homozygous deletion of caspase-9 is lethal, the mice will not live to adulthood. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK6153/) A conditional knock-out of caspase-9 in breast cancer cells would be needed, not a global deletion.

Furthermore, the given the known functions of caspase-9 this experiment is not likely to provide interesting new information. This pathway is well characterized and known to play an important role in cancer (Resisting cell death; a hallmark of cancer: http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(11)00127-9 ) Loss of caspase-9 activity makes cells resistant to apoptotic signals through the mitochondrial pathway(they won't die when they receive these "suicide" signals). This allows mutant cells to survive when they should otherwise die. Cancer cells can also become resistant to this pathway through other means (such as the up regulation of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 family members. 

Many scientists are already studying how to restore normal function of this pathways in various cancers; what do you hope to learn by breaking it that isn't already known (I'm not saying that there couldn't be a good reason, but if you don't have one, you shouldn't do it.)