It took me years to come around to reading this, and what is there really to review here? As an historical document, knowing all that came during and after this report was being written--Iraq War, ISIS, etc. this is an interesting benchmark in the midst of a rapidly changing security context.

Very informational.

THE CONTROVERSIAL REPORT ON THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS

The 9/11 Commission report has been vilified as "partisan," as a "cover-up" (cf. the supposed cover-up of the JFK assassination by the Warren Commission), etc.; but whatever one's perspective, one should definitely simply READ the report itself (and pay attention to information in the FOOTNOTES; sometimes "minority" members of the Commission were only able to get material included in the report by having it relegated to seemingly obscure footnotes).

They note early on, "No one at the FAA or the airlines that day had ever dealt with multiple hijackings. Such a plot had not been carried out anywhere in the world in more than 30 years, and never in the United States. As news of the hijackings filtered through the FAA and the airlines, it does not seem to have occurred to their leadership that they needed to alert other aircraft in the air that they too might be at risk." (Pg. 10)

About Flight 93, they wrote, "The hijackers remained at the controls but must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them... Jarrah's objective was to crash his airliner into symbols of the American Republic, the Capitol or the White House. He was defeated by the alerted, unarmed passengers of United 93." (Pg. 14)

They observed, "Congress had a distinct tendency to push questions of emerging national security threats off its own plate, leaving them for others to consider. Congress asked outside commissions to do the work that arguably was at the heart of its own oversight responsibilities... these commissions made scores of recommendations to address terrorism and homeland security but drew little attention from Congress. Most of their impact came after 9/11." (Pg. 107)

It states soberly, "It was in Kandahar that perhaps the last, and most likely the best, opportunity arose for targeting bin Ladin with cruise missiles before 9/11. In May 1999... no one at the Pentagon or the CIA ... thought it was a bad gamble..." (Pg. 140)

They summarize, "While by no means as threatening as Japan's act of war, the 9/11 attack was in some ways more devastating. It was carried out by a tiny group of people, not enough to fill a full platoon. Measured on a governmental scale, the resources behind it were trivial. The group itself was dispatched by an organization based in one of the poorest, most remote, and least industrialized countries on earth. The organization recruited a mixture of young fanatics and highly educated zealots who could not find suitable places in their home societies or were driven from them." (Pg. 339-340)

The official report is essential reading for anyone interested in the 9/11 attacks, and their aftermath.

Self contradictory and over dramatic. I felt I knew less on the topic after reading it. It reads more like pulp fiction than an official account.

Samlede den her basse op i et bog skab i 1.g

I suppose I shouldn't say I enjoyed this book, given the grim subject matter, but I did come away feeling that I really understood the 9/11 attacks, the motivations and methods of the attackers, and the United States' response to them. I'm grateful that the 9/11 Commission took pains not only to do meticulous research, but also to keep the prose lively and to be honest about where there were controversies about and gaps in the information provided. I think it provides an excellent template for the proposed commission on the 1/6/21 riot.

A book that seems written solely to claim that it exists and with the expectation that no one will actually read it. The overall argument being "We know what happened because a whole lot of classified documents that we can't explain to you in detail tell us it's so."

For a government report, this study is quite thorough, well written and interesting. It covers the 9/11 attacks from the planning phases in the 1990s through the attacks and the aftermath of the attacks in New York and Washington DC.

The first part of this book was about the planning of this attack. It was fascinating to read about the reasons why the Al Qaeda network planned this attack several years before it was carried out. Most fascinating were all of the small places where the plot was on the verge of falling apart, only to be saved by the determination of the terrorists and the incompetence of the security aparatus in the United States. At one point, a terrorist tried to bring equipment into the USA from Canada and was caught by border agents. Another terrorist took flight lessons from a man in Florida who alerted authorities that one of his students was interested in learning to fly but had no interest in learning to land a plane. At another time one of the terrorists went back to the Middle East to visit relatives and had trouble coming back to the States. Despite all of this, the organization managed to pull off the greatest terrorist attack in US history through sheer determination.

The rest of the book dealt with the local authorities who had to deal with the aftermath of the attack. They talked about the victims in the Twin Towers who were trapped in the upper floors and tried to escape through the roof, but no aircraft could get up there because of the heat eminating from the building. They could not take the stairs past the crash site because of the heat, so they starting jumping from the windows to certain death, since that was their only options. The authors talked about firemen who milled around the stairwells because they didn't know what to do and they didn't have orders directing them. And nobody knew that the heat from the crash had so degraded the integrity of the buildings that they would collapse, killing hundreds of firefighters who were still inside.

It was a dramatic story with great recommendations. Besides that, it reminds all of us how precious our freedom and our security really are. I would recommend that everyone read this book to truly understand what happened on September 11, 2001.

Not a great read for entertainment. Many of the chapters are a slog through the details of our Byzantine intelligence bureaucracy and the minute details of how with a better organizational structure, we MAYBE would have been able to put the hundreds of pieces together to see that an attack was coming.
Some chapters were gripping. The first chapter was the most dramatic describing what took place on the planes and the federal government and airlines scrambling to respond. The chapters describing the emergency response to the WTC were harrowing as well.
Many of the recommendations in this report I found uninspired. Possibly because I benefit from hindsight knowing how naive the “war on terror” has been. E.g. there seemed to be an optimism we could win the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide. Man, if we could just show them how GREAT America is! /s
Though to their credit, the authors were clear-eyed of what a tremendous institutional challenge it is to address the counterintelligence problem, and many of those recommendations were enacted with some success—and lots of funding.

I've found the 9/11 Commission Report incredibly interesting and straight to the point. The details in this book are second to none and leave out nothing. As a self-proclaimed history buff, I was fond of the easy to read and non opinionated style of writing. No personal opinions or ideologies are present in this book, partly because it's a piece of writing written by the United States government, but also because it's not necessary. The outstanding majority of American citizens who were to read this book would feel so passionately upset and at the same patriotic after experiencing such a meticulous recollection of such a haunted moment in our country's history. I appreciate the organization and flow of the book. It breaks down the ins and outs of 9/11, piece by piece. You never feel overwhelmed by an overhaul of stats and numbers being flung at your face, but rather the story is easy to follow, and every imaginable aspect of the attack is described individually. The report doesn't only recount the attacks themselves, but plunges deep into the preparation by the terrorists and the lack of preparation by the United States, and also gives readers an insight into the direct and indirect aftermath of 9/11.

A very detailed report of the activity of 9/11. The nay sayers won't like this book on the Commission Report of 9/11; but truth be told it is an important book in understanding the events of this tragic day in our nations history. I give it 4 stars due to the missing 28 pages that are still considered too classified to publish, these pages related to KSM (the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.)

Marvelous, Brilliant!