Excellent summary. Silent Running Blog
The 9/11 Commission Final Report (Round 1)
I've just spent good portions of the last three days reading the entire 9/11 Commission Final Report.
Incredible.
I've also caught a few interviews of some of the principals from the Commission - and it has been a lot easier to follow exactly what they're talking about, having seen the actual report.
The extracts that they're pushing as sound bites and interviews are only a small portion of what this thing contains. The detail that the report goes into is phenomenal. The report is imminently readable, but very, very long. The Executive summary does give a good overview - if you don't feel like plowing through the entire thing, it is a good extract/representation of the overall contents.
For all the ballyhoo surrounding the Commission - the grandstanding and posturing at the public sessions, the kafuffle about Gorelick's conflict of interest, the speculation swirling about the testimony of notables such as Clarke, and the recent revelations about Berger's antics - they all just sort of fall away as irrelevant. Because ultimately, the acts of these individuals, and the circumstances of the public displays, they don't translate as being evident in this final product. It's just too big and comprehensive to have been significantly damaged by any of that stuff.
Kean and Hamilton are basically correct in that it isn't a blame game document. While people will eventually read, dissect, and interpret certain portions as being reflective of blameworthy action, for one reason or another - as the report is, it doesn't pass judgments on individual circumstance - it just reports the facts, and draws overarching conclusions - without 'reaching out and touching anyone'. It is not, however, kind in its treatment of institutional or policy constructs that were found lacking on 9/11, or ineffective leading up to it.
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Several things do become clear from the accounting rendered within - it's a bit more obvious why Richard Clarke <font color=blue>'had the nerve'<font color=black> to offer a public apology during his testimony. Throughout the Clinton years, and into the early months of the Bush administration, he was THE terrorism guy at the NSC - if he wasn't pushing stuff, in a lot of cases, it wasn't getting done. And the evidence of that is provided by much more than Clarke's own testimony to that effect.
Also clearer are the potential motivations for Sandy Berger to want to shuffle documents at the National Archives - keep in mind, at the time he was conducting his hijinks, he had no idea how the results of the Commission's investigation were going to go - and from the events detailed in the final report, there is ample material to give rise to the notion that he probably had some sort of desire to make his, and possibly his boss' record on things look a bit better - although, on the other hand, there was just so much from that time period liable for criticism, that it could be argued that if that was his goal, he'd have had to back up a U-Haul truck to remove the material necessary to completely <font color=blue>'un-paper'<font color=black> what had gone on, or not gone on, in the Clinton White House. As it is, however, even if there had been embarrassing handwritten notations that Berger didn't want to see on preliminary draft material, it probably wouldn't have been highlighted as particularly damning to the Clinton folks, or Berger personally - but remember, he didn't know that, at the time.
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There will be a furious debate and discussion which is going to break out over the Commission's recommendations section, and not least of all because it is an election year. Half of the valid concerns are going to be slapped around with charges of parochialism, desires for foot dragging, not enough strawberry ice cream, and whatever else can be thought of. The other half of the discussions will probably receive the same treatment from those that put forward opinions on the first part.
I'd strongly urge anyone that intends to follow the debate of the recommendations to read the entire recommendations section before plowing into the noise that talking about it will certainly generate. The Commission has anticipated some of the obstacles that implementation will face, but there are some pretty imaginative folks out there that will certainly think of other reasons for complaints.
I can't say as I fully endorse all of the recommendations - some of the concepts are fairly complex, and it's going to take a while for it to percolate around. But I do agree with the Commission, that change of the structure and system is imperative to the continued Safety and Security of the United States of America.
No other proof than the fact that 19 guys barely beyond the level of buffoonery, directed by two other guys in a cave halfway around the world, were able to kill 3000 people in under two hours by exploiting our current weaknesses should be needed.
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The report gives a very explicit, and extremely chilling description of the enemy we face. Militant Islamic Extremists. They cannot be reasoned with, they cannot be bought, they cannot be pacified, and they want to kill us, even if they die in the attempt. And the only way to stop them is to deny them or disrupt their opportunities to act, until they are either arrested, or we kill them, before they attempt to act.
The report also points out that we are involved in a total war against these enemies - although we are not completely fighting a total war on all possible fronts. And it gives some examples of how the fight needs to be extended - because at the heart of it, it is a war of ideals - more starkly than the ideological battle of the Cold War between Democracy and Communism.
And this is just the beginning of my thoughts on this report - like I said, there is a LOT of stuff in there.
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