The
9 11 Commission Report - Part 1 of 2 - FULL
Audio Poem - by The
9/11 Commission
The 9/11 Commission Report, formally named
Final Report of the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the
United States, is the official report of the events leading up to the
September 11, 2001 attacks. It was prepared by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (informally sometimes known as the "9/11 Commission" or the "
Kean/
Hamilton Commission") at the request of the
President and
Congress, and is available to the public for sale or free download.
The commission was established on
November 27,
2002 (442 days after the attack) and their final report was issued on
July 22, 2004. The report was originally scheduled for release on
May 27, 2004, but a compromise agreed to by
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert allowed a sixty-day extension through July 26.
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The commission interviewed over 1,
200 people in 10 countries and reviewed over two and a half million pages of documents, including some closely guarded classified national security documents. The commission also relied heavily on the
FBI's
PENTTBOM investigation. Before it was released by the commission, the final public report was screened for any potentially classified information and edited as necessary.
After releasing the report, commission chair
Thomas Kean declared that both Presidents
Bill Clinton and
George W. Bush were "not well served" by the FBI and
CIA.[1]
In addition to identifying intelligence failures occurring before the attacks, the report provided evidence of the following:
Airport security footage of the hijackers
as they passed through airport security
Excerpts from the
United Airlines Flight 93 cockpit voice recording, which recorded the sounds of the hijackers in the cockpit and the passengers' attempts to regain control
Eyewitness testimony of passengers as they described their own final moments to family members and authorities on airphones and cellphones from the cabins of doomed airliners
The commission also concluded 15 of the
19 hijackers who carried out the attacks were from
Saudi Arabia, but found no evidence the government of Saudi Arabia conspired in the attacks, or that it funded the attackers.[2]
Mohamed Atta, the leader of the attacks, was from
Egypt. Two hijackers were from the
United Arab Emirates, and one was from
Lebanon. According to the commission, all 19 hijackers were members of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, led by
Osama bin Laden. In addition, while meetings between al-Qaeda representatives and
Iraqi government officials had taken place, the panel had no credible evidence that
Saddam Hussein had assisted al-Qaeda in preparing or executing the
9/11 attacks.
The commission's final report also offered new evidence of increased contact between
Iran and al-Qaeda. The report contains information about how several of the 9/11 hijackers passed through
Iran, and indicates that officials in Iran did not place entry stamps in their passports. However, according to the report (
Chapter 7), there is no evidence that Iran was aware of the actual 9/11 plot. Iran has since implemented several widely publicized efforts to shut down al-Qaeda cells operating within its country.
The commission report chose to place blame for failure to notify the military squarely upon the
FAA.
Ben Sliney, FAA operations manager at
Herndon, Virginia, and Monte
Belger, FAA Acting
Deputy Administrator on 9/11 both stated to the commission that military liaisons were present and participating in
Herndon's response as the events of 9/11 unfolded. Sliney stated that everyone who needed to be notified, including the military, was.[
3][4]
In addition to its findings, the report made extensive recommendations for changes that can be made to help prevent a similar attack. These include the creation of a
National Intelligence Director over both the CIA and the FBI, and many changes in border security and immigration policy.
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The 9/11 Commission Report states that "long-term success demands the use of all the elements of national power: diplomacy, intelligence, covert action, law enforcement, economic policy, foreign aid, public diplomacy, and homeland defense."
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CRITICISM
The report has been accused of not giving the whole story about the warnings the
U.S. received prior to the attacks.
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ADAPTATIONS
In
2006, The 9/11 Commission Report, a straight to
DVD movie, was released by
The Asylum. It is based on the findings of the original 9/11 Commission Reports, although it does fictionalize some elements.
The report inspired a controversial television miniseries,
The Path to 9/11. Dramatizing many specific scenes in the report, it is a synthesis of multiple (and in some cases partisan) sources in addition to the report itself.
- published: 13 Jan 2013
- views: 2603