9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Official edition) Including the Executive Summary

Rating:
Summary: Who needs fiction ...
Review: ... when there are books like this. Amazingly, considering it's a government report, this is gripping, frightening, and well written. Don't pass comment on the war on terror till you've read this.

The first chapter on the events of the day shook me deeply.

Rating:
Summary: An eye-opening view of the enemy and the challenges we face.
Review: After listening to the talking heads yelling about what the report did or didn't say, I decided read it for myself. I must say that I am very glad I did.

This report provided me a much greater knowledge of the enemy we face today...an enemy that has been growing like a cancer within the body of civilization. The report provides background details of the events that transpired...from the operational planning and how complex the operation was. It points out missed opportunities and the shortcomings of the many governmental departments and agencies and how they communicate with each other. It is a shame when the CIA and FBI cannot share information on an investigation, even when they are both looking at the same person. Because of this, they missed a chance to connect that person to two different hijackers that the government had no previous knowledge of any connection.

This book made it clear to me that we are no longer facing the type of enemy that The Greatest Generation faced in WWII...large standing armies of nations. We are now facing an enemy that prefers death over life; has no national borders...unless they hijack one like they did in Afghanistan.

The suggestions the commission offers are reasonable and necessary.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting...
Review: FYI this is available for download via government websites. The main thing that bothers me about this report, besides the fact that 9/11 could have been and should have been prevented is that there are missing parts to the report, parts which have been classified. None the less, this is a good read, don't be educated, educate yourself. God bless to those who left this world that horrible day.

Rating:
Summary: Documentation - avoids judgment
Review: I downloaded the unabridged audio from (...) and listened to the report. This book is long, so the unabridged audio on a commute is the way to go. The printed text would be good if you were going to look up names.

It has thirteen chapters each giving detailed background on a particular aspect that relates to 9-11:
1. Recreation of what was going on on the planes that morning and what air traffic controllers and the military were doing to deal with it
2. Bin Laden and what he was doing from 1988 to 1998 (I liked discussion of his finances and how Al Quada was run as a corporation -- more about this structure in section 7)
3. Discussion of the 1993 WTC bombing and other terrorist attacks prior to 9-11 and how various agencies responded to them
4. What the US was doing about Al Quada prior to 9-11
5. Al Quada attacks on the US prior to 9-11
6. What the US was doing about terrorism
7. What the individual people who hijacked the plane were doing in the months before, how they came to the US and what they were doing.
8. Potential tip offs prior to the attacks
9. Police and firefighters in New York and what they did on 9-11
10. Wars in the middle east and especial Iraq's political system
11. A reemphasis of the fact that our thought processes have changed since 9-11 and a warning to remember that if we try to assign blame
12. Practical things to do about terrorism now
13. Suggestions to improve internal communications in the US government

The report was careful to always point out that even though we can look back and say "bad move" about what people were doing about terrorism, that they really were doing the best given the information they had. It is weird to have to be reminded of how everyone used to think. Circa 1980 "bomb threat" in a school meant hide under a school desk. Circa 1990 it meant leave the school. That's a little unrelated, but it shows how the way we think changes over time.

The Commission Report is mostly just documentation of anything you would want to know off the top of your head about 9-11. It isn't inflammatory and as I just said it always points out that people thought differently before 9-11 and that it is absurd to blame people for not believing what we barely believed for months after. Just having some balance on this topic is a positive thing given that most other sources of information are very inflammatory. This is a good source for just-the-facts about 9-11 without a big political push for something else. Even though the final sections are recommendations for where to go from here the logic for those recommendations is laid out and they flow from data in the other chapters.

If time is an issue (and this is a long book) then reading the Commission Report Executive Summary would be OK. The summary includes most of the points made in the report, but cuts out the supporting evidence. So it will tell you what the report found, but not why and how. The report is not too hard to read, but it isn't the lightest reading either. The summary is shorter, but in loosing the detail it looses the benefit of the detailed report. It would be better to read the detailed sections that you are most interested in. If you have an mp3 player then downloading the audio from freeclassicaudiobooks.com is a good way to get the story.

Rating:
Summary: The immediate success of the 9/11 report may stem from the
Review: reluctance of any major U.S. politician to dispute its conclusions, but its long-term value will lie in the quality of its history. The background to the struggle with al Qaeda has been told elsewhere, but this account-of how the attacks came about, of why they took the form they did, and of the difficulties the U.S. government faced as it attempted to adjust to this new type of threat-is bound to be definitive. The implication of the report is that the adjustment is still far from complete. The recommendations start with the need for a global strategy, which points vaguely in the right direction, before moving on to the inevitable proposals for procedural reform at which all such reports end up. Unfortunately, it may be that the United States has structural features that are always going to render calls for greater harmony, unity, coordination, cohesion, and so on as forlorn as they are warranted.



Rating:
Summary: a profolithtic look at an event that shook the americas
Review: the book was informative , shed light on the what happened that day , what was done , what could have been done to prevent it and how it changes the way americans feel about national security for many year to come this book is just great of work

Rating:
Summary: Good report, but nothing has changed
Review: The irony of The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States is that after all is said and done, nothing has changed.

No one from the CIA has been fired, and if anything, the old boy network at the CIA remains strong.

Lord help us all.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive and Proactive
Review: The report is extremely important both in its analysis of past events and its recommendations for improving American preparedness and resolution of many long festering problems.

The work is thorough and positive, although the commission does not hesitate to point out deficiencies in past and current policies and agencies. It does so in a non-partisan way, not so much to mindlessly finger-point, but rather to illuminate where we were as a nation prior to 9/11, and where we need to be. Unfortunately, most of the recommendations are lost or twisted in 10-second media sound bites or petulant diatribes by political operatives of all parties. It is the reason why thoughtful reflective citizens of all races, religions, ethnic and political backgrounds would do well to read the book (as extensive as it may be) thoroughly.

The report has, and continues to, generate fierce discussion and debate. This is a good thing - as we "never forget" the events of 9/11, we must do what is necessary (and not just what is politically expedient, to ensure that these never happen again.

Rating:
Summary: The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Com
Review: With a grave resolve that perfectly balances the enormous stakes with the necessity of delving into minutiae, this historic book describes the mechanics of the horrific attacks on the United States and recommends measures for preventing further strikes. Without trivializing any of the events or diminishing the people involved, it reads like a Shakespearean drama. The authors, with grim but charged dispassion, unspool paragraph after paragraph dramatizing the arrival of "muscle hijackers" (as opposed to pilots), the thinking of CIA director George Tenet (regularly referred to, along with most other players here, simply by last name) and plot co-coordinator Khalid Sheikh Mohammad ("KSM") among thousands of others, and the other ways and means by which a "foreign" incursion caused catastrophic domestic damage. Distilling an enormous amount of information in plain language, with unerring pitch and a perfect feel for when to gloss ("Dubai, a modern city with easy access to a major airport..."), the book's implied narrator sticks as close as possible to how real people made real decisions, and, when stymied in considering a factor or set of factors, is willing to say so. In so doing, this multi-author document produces an absolutely compelling narrative intelligence, one with clarity, a sense of shared mission and an overriding desire to do something about the situation. At the same time, with quotational chapter headings like " `We Have Some Planes' " and " `The System Was Blinking Red,' " the authors never forget that they are communicating in a medium that has a lot of stylistic resources for holding one's attention; they draw liberally on the most tried and true. Given what hangs in the balance, it is not a stretch to compare this document to The Federalist Papers, in the sense that the book is designed to foster the debate by which the country will reimagine itself through its bureaucracy.

Rating:
Summary: If you want to know what really happened, start here.
Review: Wow. Talk about an eye-opening experience.

If you want to know what really happened...actually, not only "what", but "why" and "how"...this is the sum-total of all the information the United States has been able compile and analyze.

The first most amazing thing about this book, and there are several, is how readable it is for a government report. Not only is it well written, it is carefully written. "Careful" meaning "with care" and not "cautious". Effort was made to create a document that everyone can read and learn from.

The segments of the book are fairly discrete...the events of the day, examining the rise of Islamist terrorism, the history of Bin Laden, the details surrounding our responses not only that day but in the weeks that followed.
There are dozens of people to keep track of, and with the many Arabic names, it was initially a little difficult (for this "Westerner") to keep up.

Fortunately, the authors do two things to help: a "roster" of sorts as an appendix, and a pattern of referring to previous key chapters when discussing certain events.

There is so much the common American knows about that day, yet it is truly the proverbial "tip of the iceberg." Besides the cold facts, the authors present analysis and perspective. They manage to collate and sum up previous passages as they go along, to create a dynamic read...compelling as well as educational.

And this is unbelievably educational. I learned so much about Islam, Bin Laden, the Middle East, domestic and foreign policy, military and intelligence protocols and tactics...you will discover when talking to people about this book (and you WILL want to talk to people...trust me...) you will find they are startlingly unaware of what really happened that day.

A few tidbits that I find most interesting:
The terrorists didn't defeat our security system, they managed to get on board by complying with it.
There is more than ample evidence that the fourth plane was downed by the attackers in response to the heroic passengers, and was in fact headed for the White House.
There really is no connection to Iraq whatsoever.
Clinton was worried about Bin Laden throughout most of his presidency, yet his concerns met with many over-cautious or under-concerned ears.
While there are glaring problems which allowed this to happen, the truth is that we found this sort of event "beyond our consciousness".
Like, hijackers hijack, they don't aim.
Terrorists blow up planes, but as of yet, not while they're ON them.
Foreign "incoming" threats don't come in from over Pennsylvania.
The Middle East seems very "far away" to Americans; America is "too close" for many of those in the Middle East.
Of all the colleges and universities in the United States of America, on September 11th, only SIX offered courses/degrees in learning the Arabic language.

I honestly feel this is a book that needs to be read by any American who cares at all about what happened. It's almost your duty, if you are ever to form an opinion on what has happened to our country since then, to read this book.

An argument could be made that it was ignorance that got us to where we are today. This single book could do a lot to prevent further problems.