Review and Analysis The 9/11 Commission Report, The Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States/Authorized Edition (2004)

Title: The 9/11 Commission Report, The Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States/Authorized Edition (2004)

Preliminary First Review (Note if I've pist of people from blogger before they'll hate me now):

Introduction:

I probably lost it,  gone crazy, sitting down to review and analyze this monster of 567 pages;  and it's not a easy read, it really overflows with information your head ends up  numb for a week after reading this report ( its probably the tenth time that I've read it from front to back, you always find new stuff), but I thought to myself that it would be an interesting exercise especial having perspective 14 years after the events of September  11 which basically changed the game for US policy and defined George W Bush’s legacy, with his war on Terror, and even though Bush is long gone the Terror he pledge to fight is alive and well,  Al Qaeda is still operating and has inspired many other Jihadist movements , and the power vacuum that was left in post Saddam Husain Iraq and post Taliban Afghanistan has served as fertile  breeding grounds for these group to grow in knowhow and experience.

Now I remember the day of the attacks like it happened yesterday, I was in a university class  called International Security here in at my home town university, in Cordoba Argentina, when some entered the class and told us to go to the nearest TV to see what was happing, we saw everything in utter shock, but I'll never forget the professor of that International Security class telling us that everything that he had been teaching had just become irrelevant and that this was a true game changer in the International System and boy was he right, the War on Terror, the Patriot Act, Regime Change, the Birth of Homeland Security, the Axis of Evil/Terror ... all spiraled out of the events of 9-11, the poor action and miss fires of Bush government basically left a complete mess where the US took action, and anti-american sentiment ran rampant, corroded Americas image across the globe (Note I will make a review of Peter Katzestein about Anti-Amricanism and the War on Terror) . Note I think any other president could have done a better job than George W, he wasn't prepared to handle such a international political contingency, I remember reading a article a ironically a week before the attack the explained that since he had taken office in early 2001 he didn't show much interest in foreign  policy, even though he was warned of a possible major terrorist attack, he concentrated on domestic issues till the world came knocking.

Before we move on sorry for the margens they are al over the place having issues with the blog site its self.

So lets start off with the Bad, the Stupid and the Scary:

·         There are about 28 pages removed from the report for national security reasons, it speculated that the info on these pages can incriminate members of the Saudi royal family, but it seems that even the Saudi’s are asking the US publish these 28 pages.

·         Even Though the Majority of the Terrorist are Saudi Arabia Nationals the book put very little focus on this country maybe 8 pages out of a 428 pages

·         Not too much capacity for synthesis, the report  phase out as a reader every now and then, it gets into some technical issues and if you are not a expert certain fields you are lost in this  book at moments.

·         The quality of the analyses goes down as the book progresses, it much more serious at the begging of the report and at the end it become very pro US and ethnocentric, trying to validate future policies. 

·      US government was open to give the Taliban a Chance P 111,  oh boy they didn't have the slightest idea the nature of this group, this probably because of the US disengagement with this region in general. 

·         It mind blowing that the report actually establishes on P 117 that because of the movie "Wag the Dog" that came out 1997, that was about how a president created a fake international conflict to distract the population from domestic issues, in this case the Lewinsky scandal, Clinton couldn't get any political traction to confront Osama bin Laden.  

·         Taliban where willing to negotiate after some talks with the CIA  to give Osama bin Laden to the Saudi's, but in the face to face talks thing went bad ending up with Riyadh suspending diplomatic relations with Afghanistan, yes the Saudi's dropped the ball it sort off a pattern to see them screw up in this report and get off scott free.

·         From my point of view  Chapter 8 and 11 are pretty redundant, both touch on things the  Report has already elaborated on.   

·         On Pakistan the Bush Administration  did engaged Musharraf on this issue and established that Al Qaeda was "a direct threat to the United States and its interest" p 207, to see how they could address this issue, Yup they did a pretty job, they only found Osama hiding out in their country.

The Bush administration obsessed with Saddam Hussein so they wanted to tie him to the attacks of 9-11 with no evidence what so ever, but they made  him a target in the War on Terror anyways, so here we go with some of the stupid affirmation from the Bush administration the this Report present the reader:

·         Bush actually speculated that if Saddam Hussein pledge to Palestinian suicide bombers, so he might have had a hand in the 9-11 attacks.

·         Richard Clark head of the CIA informs Condoleezza Rice that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks.

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·         Everyone in the Bush Administration really wanted to make the case to attack Iraq, but Rumsfeld really stands out, the report citing the Secretary of Defense, explaining that he had the  instinct was to hit Saddam Hussein at the same time the US would attack  Bin Laden page 335. So I guess you can run foreign policy and a future war on instinct, I can't believe this is actually  report and no one holds this guys accountable. A couple of line latter on the same page the report mention that Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz try to make the case to attack Iraq at the same time as Afghanistan in phase one in the War on Terrorism, again with no evidence in hand, but they were hellbent on taking down Saddam.

·         Paul Wolfowitz thought that Iraq was the source of the terrorist problem, from my point of view when you read this report the man seem obsessed with Iraq but never explains his motives or tries to prove his point.

·         Now read this crazy chronology of the Bush administrations stupidity September 15 Iraq is off the table in the planning of the US retaliation, September 16 Iraq is back on the table just in case if they find any relation with Al Qaeda and September 17 Iraq is considered officially part of phase two of the War on terrorism, it insane that these people took these types of decisions based  mostly on hunches.

 

Debatable and Juicy Aspects of the Report:

·         The book tries on a few occasions to establish a relationship between Osama Bin Laden and Iraq, but the book officially establishes that Saddam had no relationship with terrorist or sponsor terrorism in general. But for George W Bush and his cabinet virtually ignored the same intelligence that was used to make the report establishing that there was no relation between Saddam’s Iraq and Al Qaeda, Bush’s team actually created the  ridicules concept Axis of Evil (yes they used comic book language), which Iraq war part of and it was part of War on Terror and Saddam’s  regime had to go. So this report came out after the attack and invasion of Sovereign nation and basically  this report officially establishes that Bush was wrong their no relationship between Saddam and Osama, but who cares the regime has changed there is democracy in Iraq everything will be fine. 

·         Report explains that fundamentalism  and in this case Bin Laden's appeal, and how it  finds its foot hold in "people disoriented by cyclonic changes as they confront modernity and globalization" p 48, note for the report these terrorist are not part modernity, but we can observe they sure like internet and technology, they are just picky and choosy what they like from modernity and better said from my point of view they are a unwanted by product of modernity. Putting it in another way not everyone that joins these groups are "disoriented" or do not understand these modern times, in a way its underestimating these people, many are disenchanted with what's happening in our times or feel that they don't fit in and through themselves into faith and gravitating into extremism over time if the social political context is right ( note this is an over simplification just to explain my point).  

·         It's interesting to see unlike ISIS, Osama was willing to bridge the differences  between Shia and Sunni Muslims, to battle  common enemy the West, the report establishes that relationship started while Osama was in Sudan.

·         It's interesting to see how sluggish the US government was to understand that terrorism and how it had evolved over the 90's into the early 2000's.

·         The Report establishes  in chapter 7 that Hezbollah gave advice and assistance to Al Qaeda, and they were allowed free transit with no control in Iran, Now this is surprisingly  because one group is  Shia group and the other Sunni, but they seem to have  left their differences aside because both had a bone to pick with Saudi Arabia, It would be interesting to dig in and find more info on the subject. 

·         In  Chapter 10 the Report touches on a hot topic, that a group of Saudi nationals were flown out of US airspace in a chapter flight during the prohibition of flights  after the attacks, before September 13 when US airspace reopened. The report establishes that this didn't happened but the speculation remains if this group of Saudi's were let out because of  the pressure of the Saudi government. 

·         With such a big Saudi foot print in the whole report with most of the Hijackers were born in that country, actual 15 out of 19, from my point of view we have an issue here. The report timidly talks about this problem for about three pages, addressing the problem of the Zakat the Muslim for charity and social security, one of the five pillars of Islam, and how growing Saudi wealth  sometimes ends up funneled into extremist schools and organizations that pose as charity foundations. The Report notes that in the Muslim world there is no oversight how and  who this money goes to, and one must note the Al Qaede started like one of these charitable organization, and  the report just evades to confront some major cultural issues in Saudi Arabia, especially  Wahabi religious doctrine that  promotes a very dangerous type of religious zeal, that was probably spoon feed to those 15 hijackers since they were kids and were recruited in Saudi Arabia.

·         In Chapter 10 presents the reader that in the early stages of planning the US military response Rumsfeld established that  it was possible that it was necessary to broaden the list of States who could have harbored and trained the attacker including Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Iran, from my point of view here is where the US loses it moral authority, because note even the report draws responsibilities to any of these State.

·         The US establishes a strong alliance with Pakistan to battle the Taliban, yup they were totally trust worthy allies, we just only found Osama bin Laden hiding their territory.

 

·         In chapter 12 the book goes  full on ethnocentric pro US mode, explaining that the reason  there is Islamic terrorism is "because the Muslim world has fallen behind the West politically, economically and militarily for the past three centuries and because it has so few tolerant or secular democracies", this is a oversimplification that just leads into the justification of the need of the War on Terror and Regime Change.

·         The Report Actually establishes places that are hotspots for terrorism, None of them objectives in the war on terrorism, expect for Afghanistan We have the Pakistan/Afghanistan boarder, Western,  Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, frontier of Kenya with Somalia,  Thailand, Philippines,  Indonesia, Nigeria, Mali and especially expatriate Muslim communities in Europe  that with their migratory policy of free movement in the union makes it hard to track potential terrorist.

·         The report actually praises George W Bush's for his actions in Afghanistan on page  370, now objectivity at this point has gone out the window.

Clinton was very worried about the threat Osama posed, but deliberately didn't speak openly about him in public if not obligated  "avoid enhancing bin Laden's stature by giving him unnecessary publicity", note from my point of view Bush's War on Terrorism and the way it was managed it elevated Osama among Islamic radicals and served bin Laden's agenda. 

·         During the whole election cycle for the year 2000 presidential election terrorism and especially Al Qaeda wasn't debated, being the fact that the USS Cole had been very recently attacked  and the bombings in Africa, and  that's a very interesting observation from the report itself.

Some interesting ideas, conclusions and other stuff from this book:

·         The book establishes the need to create e new government entity called Homeland Security that coordinates the efforts of the US Intelligence Agencies.  Something that is seemed to be needed now in Europe dealing  with the aftermath of the 13/11 attacks on Paris, an entity that is above the individual national intelligence agencies, that coordinates efforts and makes sure that vital intelligence is shared among the security services.  

·         NORAD proved useless to counter these attacks, it was conceived to stop external threats and traditional hijackings, more thought for the Cold War.

·         People most understand that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) is the architect of the 9-11 attacks, not Osama bin Laden, it's a common mistake , and it important that this Report make this distinction.

·         In all the recommendation that report makes to the US government in how it should proceed with the War on Terrorism, Iraq is never mentioned , not once.

 

·         In Chapter 1 which is about how the Hijacking and crashing of the four commercial airliners, extremely detailed and its pretty chilling to read how dismayed most authorities where with what was going on at the moment of the attacks, no government had ever confronted anything like this, there was no security protocol or procedure in place for anything like this, but if there where it couldn't  have stopped the attack  maybe only mitigated it, at least from my point of view.

·         Security measures at airports has since tightened since 9/11  especially for passengers and their lugged had gotten much more stricter, just becoming a real pain in the butt for the passengers, but as we discovered in a series of reports elaborated by US authorities during  2015 that there is a major security loop holes in the control of Airport and Airline employs and also government officials and  because of their access to restricted areas of the Airport especially the aircrafts themselves, potentially being able  to plant a bomb and be totally undetected until it's too late. ( in this example this was loop hole was actually discovered by people trafficking fire arms), all this really brought the attention of the authorities thanks to an unrelated security breech that opened up this can of worms.

·         The Report gives the reader a pretty complete story about Osama bin Laden's life and what drives him and the book explains the evolution of the institution called the Golden Chain used to finance the Mujahideen  would evolve over time in to Al Qaeda.

  

·         Bin Laden after his time in Afghanistan he when to Sudan under Hassan al Turabi protection. Osama helped in the  in the war against the Christians in the south.

 

·         Saudi Arabia to silence Osama's questioning  their regime, froze his assets,  revoked his passport and his nationality, leaving him a man without a country. 

·         Bin Ladden officially establishes the US as his enemy, first against the west in general in a Fatwa in1992, and specifically the United States in another Fatwa in 1996, that same year he arrives to Afghanistan.

 

·         One can observe that bin Ladden had the capability to get in trouble and get under the skin of the autocrats the where harboring him, Turabi ended up pushing him out of Sudan for bringing to much unwanted attention to his regime and  Mula Omar, the leader of the Taliban also tried to keep him on a tight leash, these leaders may have been fundamentalist but they weren't stupid they knew Osama even though a important asset he could be also a liability.

·         It surprising to read that there was no communication among government agencies , limited cooperation and no coordination among government agencies on terrorism issues. US government didn't seem to understand what they were up against how terrorism had changed, especially its motivation.

·         Bill Clinton officially established in 1995 and reaffirmed in 1998 that terrorism as a national security problem, not just a law enforcement issue. P 108. Now is very important because most writers of the time only center on Clinton's economic agenda at the time and tend to look this over aspect of his presidency.

·         The State Department South Asia bureau in 1996 established the bin Laden was a subject of interest.

·         This is fundamental December 4 1998  Richard Clarke in his briefing for the president he establishes the bin Laden is preparing to attack US interest, and possible planning to hijack  an aircraft to use as bargaining chip to secure the release of some of his associates that had been captured, it was discovered that people in his organization where receiving training in this field. This sets a precedent on the issue starting with Clinton, who  knew the risk Osama posed and he didn't take it lightly.   

·         Chapter 4 talks about some of the key players that made the terrorist attack happen like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) who is the true mastermind of 9-11 and he was also behind Bojinka a plot that was going to try to bring down 12 US airliners in a two day span, that thankfully never took place. I must note I always wondered way the media gave some much attention Osama bin Laden over KSM, up until  this day if you see a documentary on 9-11 KSM is seldomly  mentioned, maybe because of the fact  Osama became a figure of great speculation and it took so long to get him while KSM was captured early on in the war against terror, in 2003, so maybe he didn't have very much political value to fuel Bush's war, but this is all just speculation on my part. Another interesting aspect about KSM was that the Report ilustraits  that attacking California was the plan B, if New York didn't play out.

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·         Mohammed  Atta pilot of American Airlines 11, really made everyone redefine terrorism and terrorist itself, because he didn't fit the mold of traditional terrorist, he wasn't someone oppressed by a foreign power in his territory, he wasn't  fighting for national liberation, he wasn't someone poor that wanted fix an unjust economic system, he wasn't a anarchist that wanted to fight government, he wasn't part of some  crazy dooms day  cult that characterized the 90's... This young man from Egypt immigrated to Hamburg Germany he had a degree in Structural Engineering , the report describes him as someone  "intelligent and   responsibly pleasant" that spoke German very well and live a comfortable life in Germany, he had an entire life in front of him, but  the report also describes him for having very dogmatic view of Islam, his religious zeal started to grow.

·         Ziad Jarrah another one of the hostage takers came from well off family in Lebanon and went to a Christian school and went to Germany as a young adult to pursue higher learning, didn't show signs of any  religious zeal, the report mentions that he enjoyed going out to parties and drinking beer, but after a trip to his home land he changed  taking the same path with  Atta forming what would be called the Hamburg Cell attacking more sect like as time passed. Considering the posibility in to going to fight to Chechnya, bu out of chance were convinced to go to Afganistan. Once back from Afghanistan members distance themselves from high profile fundamentalist in Hamburg and stop attending extremist mosques, Jarrah shaved his beard, Atta used western clothes, it like they started to go in deep undercover.

·         It's estimated that Osama Invested between 400.000 to 500.000 dollars on this attack on the US (P 169), and Al Qaeda up to the attacks spent 30 million a year and it was mostly financed by donors, primarily from Saudi Arabia.

·         As president elect George W Bush ask George Tenet if the CIA would assassinate bin Laden, and Tenet responded that it could be counterproductive and it would not have ended threat, but Bush gave the CIA the authority to take care of the problem. The Bush administration tried to diplomatically pressure the Taliban to turn Osama over to face justice for his acts, establishing that they would hold them responsible for anything Al Qaeda would try to do p 205. Now as much as I like to go around Bush bashing this was  somewhat of a revelation that they weren't  in the dark about Al Qaeda and its activities, it establishes a president that the Taliban would pay for Al Qaeda's misdeeds.   

 

·         One of the most interesting parts of this chapter is the part dedicated to the alleged trip of Mohammed Atta to Prague to meet an Iraqi intelligence officer, something that the Bush administrated jump on to prove the Iraq was involved with terrorism , and there for a valid target in the war on terror, but the thing is that that report official establishes that this meeting never took place.  

·         KMS established that the muscle hijackers possibly weren't  aware of the fact that the plans where going to crashing into buildings.

·          The Taliban didn't want Osama to attack the US, because it would be counterproductive for the regime, they knew that in a all out war with the United States of America would spell the end them.

·         Osama though these attacks would bring in more donations and more people to Al Qaeda and that would  add the cause.