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sarahfonseca's review
I don't know how one can even begin to rate such a document. A useful read if one wants to see how a body of bipartisan electeds encouraged the proliferation of the surveillance state under which we all now live; anticipate the arrival of Obama as a liberal President who championed defense; name the hot potato Israel and the U.S. played with regards to which nation might be Bin Laden's millennium attack(s); intimate that Clinton's feminine liaison did not supplement but distract the President from foreign policy and defense; and provide some rather banal statistics that jar the mind of one who was a child on September 11, 2001. For example: "The 9/11 attacks cost somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to execute."
lilbirdh's review
2.0
This book was horribly dense. The events it records are necessary to learn but the format made it seem like a very long and boring textbook. 9/11 needs to displayed in a different way than this as it was overwhelming to absorb so many details at once. DNF
daniellejelley's review
4.0
Very thorough investigation and well-considered recommendations. I learned a lot from this book.
jn0el's review
2.0
I read to read it for a policy class in university, and I can't say it was very exciting.
ben3845's review
4.0
I picked up The 9/11 Commission Report in light of the 20th anniversary of the attacks and the reflection it prompted for many of us. I’ll go ahead and say unequivocally at the top that this report leaves no room for the consideration of conspiracies about whether Al Qaeda might not be responsible for the 9/11 attacks. There is a wealth of evidence that the attacks were being planned for years by the wide-reaching terrorist network and that Bin Laden was directly involved in the planning, down to personally approving the hijackers. But what does become tragically clear in the report is that the United States had ample opportunities to stop Bin Laden throughout the Clinton Administration. It seems that President Clinton and his team understood the gravity of the terrorism threat, but they were playing by old rules. For them, the risks of opportunities to strike Bin Laden or Al Qaeda just seemed to outweigh the perceived threat without the hindsight afforded to us now. The same can be said of our diplomatic efforts to nudge Pakistan toward ostracizing the Taliban. They could have done more and we could have pushed them with a heavier hand — but 20th-century thinking did not merit a change in approach. The lack of preparedness for the new threats facing us extended to everything from the intelligence community, to the FAA, to the communications equipment of the NYPD. The book was not without inspiration though — the Commission does an excellent job of highlighting the incredible heroism displayed by first responders. 343 FDNY firefighters died that day — more than any emergency response agency in history. But their sacrifice was key to enabling the vast majority of civilians below the point of impact in the towers to evacuate (16,400 - 18,800 were in the towers at the time of impact). I appreciate the care the authors put into crafting a report that read with objectivity while adding just enough editorialization to make the report readable (although as a report, naturally, it could still be a slog at times). This book is a big commitment — but it’s worthwhile for anyone seeking to learn more about a day that changed all of our lives forever.
wwatts1734's review
4.0
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.
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.