9/11 Commission Report
Jul 27th, 2004 by Alex
The 9/11 Commission Report Executive Summary is a well-written brief whose contents prompted me to download (or purchase) the entire report to read up on some of the included sections. The summary is worth reading, providing a factual overview of the events that led up to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.
I downloaded the Executive Summary the other day, as I didn’t feel like wading through several hundred pages of a document which I believed to be a rather large waste of time and resources. Weighing in at a mere 25 pages, the summary provides a clear yet succinct account of the events that transpired the morning of September 11, a bit about al Qaeda’s capabilities as of that morning, as well as the history and red flags that went overlooked but that led up to the attacks (that we’re able to see now thanks to hindsight). Problems within various government organizations are outlined. Policy recommendations are made to remedy some of those problems, including some rather sweeping reorganizations of government structures.
The summary also provides for some rather scary insight. “[One] problem is that al Qaeda represents an ideological movement, not a finite group of people. It initates and inspires, even if it no longer directs.” I believe that it is this inspiration that we have to fear most, as it can’t be easily controlled or prevented. This inspiration will quite possibly be fueled by our attempts to quench it. Indeed, countering it will plague this Nation for years to come. The Commission has some ideas on this, which hopefully will prove successful.
I’d recommend you check out the summary, if not some of the complete sections that interest you. In addition to the hard copies available from the Government Printing Office, “the Full Report (7 MB, 585 pages) has been made available in its entirety, as a single PDF file. The report is also available as a collection of smaller PDFs arranged in a browseable table based on the Final Report’s table of contents. An Executive Summary (344 KB, 35 pages) of the Final Report is also available.”
