INDEPTH: SEPTEMBER 11
The 9/11 Commission Report: a summary
CBC News Online | July 22, 2004
The 567-page final report from the 9/11 Commission says the U.S. government "failed to protect the American people" from terrorist attacks mainly because it did not understand the "gravity of the threat."
The report says the government experienced failures of "imagination, policy, capabilities and management."
Commission chairman Tom Kean says the failures took place over many years and through the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. Kean adds that "no single individual" bears the
blame but he says anyone who was in a senior position within the government during those years "bears some element of responsibility."
Congress established The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States in 2002 to investigate the events and circumstances surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York city and Washington D.C. The commission has 10 members - five Democrats and five Republicans - and has spent $15 million US investigating the matter.
During its 20-month investigation, the panel interviewed more than 1,000 people including members of the Clinton and Bush administrations, emergency workers and victims' families.
The Intelligence Community
The report is damning about the lack of action on the part of the FBI and CIA. It says that there were clear warnings that "Islamist terrorists mean to kill Americans in high numbers." The report echoes a congressional 9/11 inquiry by the Senate and House intelligence committees, released July 24, 2003. That report said U.S. intelligence had "failed to capitalize on both the individual and collective significance of available information" and had "missed opportunities to disrupt the September 11 plot by denying entry to or detaining would-be hijackers." The committees said that warnings were ignored by the FBI, CIA and federal government and as far back as the summer of 1998 when the CIA had indications suggesting Osama bin Laden was planning the attacks. In April 2001, the CIA had one report that said al-Qaeda was in the throes of an advanced preparation for a major attack.
The 9/11 commission says both services suffered from having too many priorities, flat budgets, outmoded structures and bureaucratic rivalries.
A top recommendation by the new report says there should be a National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) to be overseen by a national intelligence director, who would be able to influence the budget and leadership of the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security Department and Defence Department.
Operational Failures
The report says Bin Laden had a "dynamic and lethal organization" by the time of the attacks. Al-Qaeda had a system of leaders who could supervise operations, a recruitment program to indoctrinate and train candidates, ability to move people great distances and to raise and move money necessary to finance an attack.
The report highlights nine operational failures within the U.S.:
- Not putting two hijackers on a "watch list" (Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar).
- Not sharing information linking individuals on the USS Cole attack in Aden, Yemen, which killed 17 American sailors in 2000, to Mihdhar.
- Not taking adequate steps to find Mihdhar or Hazmi in the U.S.
- Not linking the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui to heightened indications of an attack. Moussaoui was interested in flight training.
- Not uncovering false statements on visa applications.
- Not recognizing false passports.
- Not expanding no-fly lists to include names from terrorist watch lists.
- Not searching airline passengers identified as possible threats through a computer screening system.
- Not taking measures to prepare of the possibility of suicide hijackings.
Recommendations
The commission says the threat of an attack is still high, despite efforts by the Bush administration to quell terrorism. The report has many suggestions to combat the threat of terrorism:
- Rooting out actual or potential terrorist sanctuaries, places where terrorists can hide.
- Strengthen long-term U.S. commitments to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
- Confront problems with Saudi Arabia in the open and build a relationship beyond oil.
- Tolerate differences with Muslim governments, respect the rule of law.
- Communicate American ideals in the Islamic world, reach more people such as students and leaders outside of government.
- Devote a "maximum of effort" to countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
- Put more money for intelligence, as a tool to hunt terrorists and to disrupt their networks.
- Broaden the use of biometrics to identify people at borders and transportation zones.
- Issue standards for when a birth certificate can be issued and other sources of identification such as driver's licenses.
- Start allocating more money to other parts of the transportation system, not just airports.
Conclusion
The report reminds people that the enemy is not Islam but a "perversion" of the religion. It says: "al-Qaeda represents an ideological movement, not a finite group of people" and that Bin Laden is an inspiration of a "new generation of terrorists." His capture would not end the bloodshed.
In the end, the government's goals should be to dismantle the al-Qaeda network and in the long run, prevail over the ideology that triggers extremist Islamist movements and, protect and prepare for terrorist attacks.
The commission's vice chairman, Lee Hamilton, called for "a shift in mind-set and organization" within the U.S. intelligence system as well as more unity in Congress and a smoother
transition between presidencies.
"The U.S. government has access to vast amounts of information, but it has a weak process, a weak system of processing and using that information," said Hamilton. "The need to share must replace need to know."
The commission urges Americans to remember how they came together after the attacks and says "unity of purpose and unity of effort" are the only ways to combat terrorism.
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