9/11 Summary
“At 8:46 on the morning of September 11, 2001, the United States became a nation transformed” (“The 9/11 Commission Report Executive Summary” 6). This day will forever be a part of the American way of live from here on out. It was a day of tragedy and surprise, but was it something we could have avoided? “The 9/11 Commission Report” talks about the events leading up to this tragic event, how the government could of avoided such devastation, who was the man behind it all, the events on the 9/11, and the general problems within the United States government. While there is more to the story then most of “us” (United States citizens) will ever know, this book is probably the closest most of the “us” will ever get to actually understanding 9/11,
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and the events leading up to it. I shall start with the man behind this tragic event, Osama Bin Laden. Now that we have an understanding of the who the brains of this horrific operation was, lets now look into the warnings our government was given by this master mind himself. So why didn’t our government take action towards these warnings? We all know our government is corrupt. These people affected by this tragedy are our family, in a weird metaphoric way. When something major happens to a part of us, it happens to all of us. Like Hurricane Katrina, recent Hurricane Sandy, the BP oil spill, the spreading wildfires in Colorado, 9/11 was an attack on our family, and something no one will ever be able to forget.
“We write with the Benefit and handicap of hindsight. We are mindful of the danger of being unjust to men and women who made choices in conditions of uncertainty and in circumstances over which they often had little control” (“The 9/11 Commission Report Executive Summary” 12). So by understanding this quote we are to hope that we are about to get some grueling evidence on how our government failed us, and caused us to lose so many family members. Reading on into the book, you learn so many different things about how we in fact made ourselves vulnerable to terrorism. You ask how? Well let me explain using the information in the book. The United States with an embassy in Saudi Arabia would grant visas to the United States to anyone without gaining any background checks. This really sounds ridiculous to me, and also makes me mad that our government was allowing terrorist to gain visas in our country, literally as fast as you could snap your fingers! I know that is a little exaggerated, but come on it was so easy for them to gain access into our country. So of course we are allowing ourselves to be vulnerable by allowing terrorist to come into our country. The book also points out that the government did not keep a close watch on future terrorist as well. Two of these terrorist being Hazmi and Mihdhar. Communication was also a big issue; they did not share information linking individuals in the Cole attack to Mihdhar. So in turn these two terrorist gained visas into our country, and not only did they travel to the United States, they were not even of adequate worry to the government. The book explains that they did not take adequate steps in time to find Mihdhar or Hazmin while they were in the United States. So this only leads me to feel like our government did not seem to care that they were allowing active terrorist to fly so freely into our country. Maybe if we would of simply taken these steps to keep these two men under control, along with the other terrorist allowed to enter our country, that 9/11 would not even be a date in time that would be forever remembered.
“What we can say with confidence is that none of the measures adopted by the U.S.
government from 1998 to 2001 disturbed or even delayed the progress of the al Qaeda plot. Across the government, there were failures of imagination, policy, capabilities, and management” (“The 9/11 Commission Report Executive Review” 14). In understanding this quote we have to take what they said about the three failures into dept, looking first at the failure of imagination, which the book calls the most important failure of the United States government. This failure being defined by how the leaders did not understand the magnitude of threat al Qaeda and Bin Laden himself was to the United States. Osama Bin Laden, being the genius he was, formulated his al Qaeda group into a power that the United States government just could not take on. This power posed challenges to the United States government though our top officials reported that they understood the dangers al Qaeda influenced. The book goes on to say that they believed it was unclear to these officials just how strong and dangerous al Qaeda was, and blew if off as an ordinary terrorist threat towards the United States. Even after 9/11 the White House staffer responsible for counterterrorism broadcasted that they were still unsure is al Qaeda was a “big deal.” What? Big deal? Are you kidding me? This one group of terrorist, the al Qaeda, just tore apart our family! They killed thousands, and left many more in fear for their own lives. The problem once again our government not thinking that flying two plans into the World Trade Center’s was big enough to consider them a threat to our nation. After reading this, I can now understand how this was the most important failure our government produced. Now that I got my rage out on that failure, I will move on to policy. Though there was not much mentioned in terms of policy, it was still in fact a way we made ourselves vulnerable to these horrid attacks. The books talks about how
terrorism was not the leading national security threat during the Clinton or pre-9/11 Bush administration. Changing the policy in terms of terrorism and who was a threat to the United States, is what led to the failure of imagination. The book entails that officials in both administrations regarded the invasion of Afghanistan as pretty much unimaginable before 9/11. I mean yes there was no major event before 9/11 that would of made me believe we should of invaded Afghanistan, but they were throwing out so many red flags! I just think our government should have taken this policy a little more seriously, but then again we cannot go back and change history we can only improve it with hopes we are better prepared in the future. Continuing on to the event that did not disrupt the al Qaeda plot, the capabilities of the United States government were a little out dated. The book describes how before 9/11 the United States government tried to tackle the problem of al Qaeda by using the same capabilities used during the Cold War and the immediate aftermath. So honestly who thought that outdated capabilities would work in a modern day scenario? Of course, as you should know by the outcomes of 9/11 this did not work. The book explains how the CIA had minimal capacity to perform paramilitary operations with its own personnel, and explains how they also did not seek any major expansions of these capabilities before 9/11. It goes on to explain how once again our government underestimated al Qaeda, and how their mindset was not fully employed in the mission of countering al Qaeda, even though it was the biggest threat to the United States. The book then goes on to say how the weakest area of capabilities was the domestic arena. This is where “the FBI did not have the capability to link the collective knowledge of agents in the field to the national priorities” (“The 9/11 Commission Report” 15). So not only were our capabilities of communication within our major agencies bad, the FAA capabilities were also bad. They did not take other terrorist attacks of suicide hijacking serious at all! If they would of paid a little attention to this detail, they would have been able put out list of people who could not fly, maybe even think about who they were giving visas to. But once again no one felt like they were in any danger, and so therefore nothing was done. Lastly management was a huge problem. The book explains that “action officers should have been able to draw on all available knowledge about al Qaeda in the government” (“The 9/11 Commission Report” 16). To explain this, management was a way to ensure information could be shared and what duties were assigned to the different agencies as well as across the foreign-domestic divide. So basically once again our government’s communication has failed this country. The book goes on to say there were also boarder management issues. This being defined as how the top leaders set priorities within their platoons and how they would distribute their resources.
and the events leading up to it. I shall start with the man behind this tragic event, Osama Bin Laden. Now that we have an understanding of the who the brains of this horrific operation was, lets now look into the warnings our government was given by this master mind himself. So why didn’t our government take action towards these warnings? We all know our government is corrupt. These people affected by this tragedy are our family, in a weird metaphoric way. When something major happens to a part of us, it happens to all of us. Like Hurricane Katrina, recent Hurricane Sandy, the BP oil spill, the spreading wildfires in Colorado, 9/11 was an attack on our family, and something no one will ever be able to forget.
“We write with the Benefit and handicap of hindsight. We are mindful of the danger of being unjust to men and women who made choices in conditions of uncertainty and in circumstances over which they often had little control” (“The 9/11 Commission Report Executive Summary” 12). So by understanding this quote we are to hope that we are about to get some grueling evidence on how our government failed us, and caused us to lose so many family members. Reading on into the book, you learn so many different things about how we in fact made ourselves vulnerable to terrorism. You ask how? Well let me explain using the information in the book. The United States with an embassy in Saudi Arabia would grant visas to the United States to anyone without gaining any background checks. This really sounds ridiculous to me, and also makes me mad that our government was allowing terrorist to gain visas in our country, literally as fast as you could snap your fingers! I know that is a little exaggerated, but come on it was so easy for them to gain access into our country. So of course we are allowing ourselves to be vulnerable by allowing terrorist to come into our country. The book also points out that the government did not keep a close watch on future terrorist as well. Two of these terrorist being Hazmi and Mihdhar. Communication was also a big issue; they did not share information linking individuals in the Cole attack to Mihdhar. So in turn these two terrorist gained visas into our country, and not only did they travel to the United States, they were not even of adequate worry to the government. The book explains that they did not take adequate steps in time to find Mihdhar or Hazmin while they were in the United States. So this only leads me to feel like our government did not seem to care that they were allowing active terrorist to fly so freely into our country. Maybe if we would of simply taken these steps to keep these two men under control, along with the other terrorist allowed to enter our country, that 9/11 would not even be a date in time that would be forever remembered.
“What we can say with confidence is that none of the measures adopted by the U.S.
government from 1998 to 2001 disturbed or even delayed the progress of the al Qaeda plot. Across the government, there were failures of imagination, policy, capabilities, and management” (“The 9/11 Commission Report Executive Review” 14). In understanding this quote we have to take what they said about the three failures into dept, looking first at the failure of imagination, which the book calls the most important failure of the United States government. This failure being defined by how the leaders did not understand the magnitude of threat al Qaeda and Bin Laden himself was to the United States. Osama Bin Laden, being the genius he was, formulated his al Qaeda group into a power that the United States government just could not take on. This power posed challenges to the United States government though our top officials reported that they understood the dangers al Qaeda influenced. The book goes on to say that they believed it was unclear to these officials just how strong and dangerous al Qaeda was, and blew if off as an ordinary terrorist threat towards the United States. Even after 9/11 the White House staffer responsible for counterterrorism broadcasted that they were still unsure is al Qaeda was a “big deal.” What? Big deal? Are you kidding me? This one group of terrorist, the al Qaeda, just tore apart our family! They killed thousands, and left many more in fear for their own lives. The problem once again our government not thinking that flying two plans into the World Trade Center’s was big enough to consider them a threat to our nation. After reading this, I can now understand how this was the most important failure our government produced. Now that I got my rage out on that failure, I will move on to policy. Though there was not much mentioned in terms of policy, it was still in fact a way we made ourselves vulnerable to these horrid attacks. The books talks about how
terrorism was not the leading national security threat during the Clinton or pre-9/11 Bush administration. Changing the policy in terms of terrorism and who was a threat to the United States, is what led to the failure of imagination. The book entails that officials in both administrations regarded the invasion of Afghanistan as pretty much unimaginable before 9/11. I mean yes there was no major event before 9/11 that would of made me believe we should of invaded Afghanistan, but they were throwing out so many red flags! I just think our government should have taken this policy a little more seriously, but then again we cannot go back and change history we can only improve it with hopes we are better prepared in the future. Continuing on to the event that did not disrupt the al Qaeda plot, the capabilities of the United States government were a little out dated. The book describes how before 9/11 the United States government tried to tackle the problem of al Qaeda by using the same capabilities used during the Cold War and the immediate aftermath. So honestly who thought that outdated capabilities would work in a modern day scenario? Of course, as you should know by the outcomes of 9/11 this did not work. The book explains how the CIA had minimal capacity to perform paramilitary operations with its own personnel, and explains how they also did not seek any major expansions of these capabilities before 9/11. It goes on to explain how once again our government underestimated al Qaeda, and how their mindset was not fully employed in the mission of countering al Qaeda, even though it was the biggest threat to the United States. The book then goes on to say how the weakest area of capabilities was the domestic arena. This is where “the FBI did not have the capability to link the collective knowledge of agents in the field to the national priorities” (“The 9/11 Commission Report” 15). So not only were our capabilities of communication within our major agencies bad, the FAA capabilities were also bad. They did not take other terrorist attacks of suicide hijacking serious at all! If they would of paid a little attention to this detail, they would have been able put out list of people who could not fly, maybe even think about who they were giving visas to. But once again no one felt like they were in any danger, and so therefore nothing was done. Lastly management was a huge problem. The book explains that “action officers should have been able to draw on all available knowledge about al Qaeda in the government” (“The 9/11 Commission Report” 16). To explain this, management was a way to ensure information could be shared and what duties were assigned to the different agencies as well as across the foreign-domestic divide. So basically once again our government’s communication has failed this country. The book goes on to say there were also boarder management issues. This being defined as how the top leaders set priorities within their platoons and how they would distribute their resources.