Critique of the 9/11 Commission Report

Critique of the 9/11 Commission Report

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to expand the boundaries of our knowledge by exploring some relevant facts and figures relating to the 9/11 Commission Report. In this paper, we will conduct a critique of the 9/11 Commission Report focusing on the report's coverage, findings, and recommendations on interagency operations. In this paper, we will examine what rights and wrongs are done by the commission about interagency operations.

Discussion & Analysis

The commission was given a task to develop a report on the different aspects of 9/11 attacks. The 9/11 Commission Report gives a detailed description of the attacks as well as a series of recommendations about how to be better prepared moving forward. The report points out a number of missed opportunities that, had the U.S. taken advantage of them, could have changed the course of history. In the recommendations portion, the Report seems to indicate that these missed opportunities demonstrate institutional weaknesses and bureaucratic failures on the part of the U.S. The commission acknowledges that it's easier to see these opportunities in hindsight, but it seems to ignore that understanding in making their recommendations (Lustick, 2006).

The 9/11 Commission report have not highlighted the perspective that existed pre-9/11. The report notes the four elements common to almost all of the methods developed by the intelligence community to defend against surprise attacks (Sunstein, 2003). The first two elements require the government to (1) “think about how surprise attacks might be launched,” and (2) “identify telltale indicators connected to the most dangerous possibilities.” The commission uses hindsight to pinpoint the use of civilian aircrafts as weapons as a likely threat, and then examines the government's response as if the pre-9/11 US intelligence community had come to the same conclusion, when that was not the case (Flynn, 2007).

The information of the intelligence suggested that the most detrimental threats were to US interests abroad. The commission notes in its report that there was still uncertainty among senior officials as to whether or not al Qaeda threats demonstrated a threat that was substantially different than past terrorist threats. The report notes that the summer to 2001 witnessed an unusually high volume of information about a potential terrorist attack, but was on the whole unclear about where, when, and how such attacks were to take place. The commission claims the U.S. failed to apply the method that was ...