The stakes in crafting the report were enormous. Having spectacularly failed to protect its citizens, could the United States Government (and specifically, its legislative branch) empanel a body capable of casting a gimlet eye on what went wrong, and why? There were reasons to be less than sanguine. First, there was the prospect of political grandstanding in an election year spoiling any attempt at objectivity. Second, the amount of time some of the Commission members spent holding forth on the cable news channels made their focus on the investigation (which required a degree of solemnity impossible in the three ring circus that is our national media) suspect. And finally, there was an inherent paradox in relying on a bureaucratic body to get to the bottom of a problem that was partly caused by bureaucratic bungling. Just as when you're carrying a hammer, everything looks like a nail, so if you're part of a bureaucracy, every solution probably involves a memo (or a whole slew of memos), a re-org, and a series of subcommittees to be convened at a later date.
Nevertheless, the Commission rose to the occasion and has done a remarkable job, reviewing millions of pages of documents and interviewing just about everyone but the arch terrorist himself. This is not your father's government commission: unlike the jargon-filled, orotund guff often churned out within the beltway, the prose is lucid, restrained and judicious, as befits its grave purpose. Some of the Commission's findings will doubtless become fodder for the conspiracy-minded (though the report nips some of the wilder, unfounded ideas in the bud), and it is open to question whether its solutions will, if implemented, actually clean out the Augean stables that are the US intelligence community and the alphabet soup of government agencies that failed us on that day. Those battles remains to be fought, and in any case, are beyond the remit of the Commission.
The report is divided into thirteen sections and three appendices. They run the gamut from the tactical and immediate to the strategic and long-term. One of the unique challenges of preventing a repeat atrocity is that 9-11 was a cataclysmic failure at virtually every level. As the report makes clear, it was not a threat that materialized over weeks or months, but over years. And the bungling was so severe, at so many levels, in so many agencies, organizations and individual offices, as to be almost incomprehensible. But it happened. A number of unknowns accompanied the hijackers and their victims to the grave. No one knows, for instance, precisely how they gained access to the cockpits.
Like a well-constructed drama, all the more horrible for its being real and culminating in the murders of thousands of innocents, the report begins in media res. It starts shortly before the cockpits of the four aircraft were stormed. This is the most painful and the most poignant part of the report to read because we know the nightmare that is about to unfold. As it makes clear, September 11th abounded with heroism and sang-froid on the part of passengers and flight crews trapped in flying crucibles with murderous terrorists.
The immortal valor of the passengers of Flight 93 and of the rescue workers has won justified renown. Other individuals also displayed grace under fire in truly appalling circumstances. Individuals like Betty Ong, the doomed flight attendant on American Flight 11 who calmly narrated a long portion of one hijacking while surrounded by murder and mayhem; or Barbara Olson, the wife of the Solicitor General of the United States, trapped on a plane about to plow into the Pentagon, whose remarkable composure while telephoning her husband, and whose futile idea to advise the captain what to do, can only be described as heroic. There are other men and women whose bravery was captured on a cell phone, and doubtless many others whose stories will never be known. Read the report for yourself. Since we do not live in a poetic age, this may be their public epitaph.
These stories of individual courage are thrown into sharp relief by the collective bungling and mindless inertia that allowed the killers into the United States and onboard the flights to begin with. Listed in this report are a number of facts that have not attracted widespread attention, but which amount to a scandal. For example, many of the hijackers raised suspicions right up to the moment they took their seats: a significant number were flagged by a computerized security pre-screening system (CAPPS); some behaved in an erratic manner that invited further screening; two struggled to answer basic security questions upon check-in; several set off the metal detectors and the source of the alarm was never found; and one did not even have photo identification. In short, even on the fatal morning of the massacre, there were warning signs. The result of these suspicions, as per policy in place at the time, was that the hijackers' baggage was not loaded until they were confirmed to have boarded the aircraft. If nothing else, this report should drive home the inadequacy of relying on backward-looking policies uninformed by individual judgment when faced with a threat as dynamic as al-Qaeda's.
It is chilling indeed to think that some bureaucrat beavering away in his or her cubicle, munching on potato chips, sipping diet drinks and writing memos, is going to be somehow responsible for your and your family's safety. As the members of Flight 93 heroically demonstrated, in the final analysis, it is up to each one of us as citizens to be ready. For as everyone agrees, there is almost certain to be a next time.
