11 Commission Report

The 9/11 Commission Report, officially titled The Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, is the authoritative report on the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks. It was prepared by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States at the request of the President and Congress, and it is available to the public for sale or free download.

The 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 sixty days of extension, until July 26.

Findings

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 had been "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
Cockpit voice recordings of the terrorists as they hijacked and sabotaged the airliners
Eyewitness testimony of passengers as they described their own final moments to family members and authories on airphones and cellphones from the cabins of doomed airliners

The commission also concluded 15 of the 19 hijackers that carried out the attacks were from Saudi Arabia, but found no evidence the government of Saudi Arabia conspired in the attacks, nor that it funded the attackers [1]. According to the commission, all 19 hijackers were members of the Al-Qaida terrorist organization, based in Afghanistan, and led by Osama bin Laden. In addition, while meetings between Al-Qaida representatives and Iraqi government officials had taken place, the panel had no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein had assisted al-Qaida in preparing for or carrying out the 9/11 attacks. The Report notes in Chapter 2 that "Bin Laden had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army."

The commission's final report also offered new evidence of increased contact between Iran and al-Qaida. 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-Qaida cells operating within the country.

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.

The report is available to be purchased in paperback (ISBN 0393326713). In addition, Barnes and Noble has independently published a hard-bound version of the report in hardcover with an index (ISBN 0760768064). The report has risen to the top of several bestseller lists and has been praised by critics for its readability and the strength of its narrative. In 2004 it was nominated for the prestigious National Book Award.