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A review by wwatts1734
The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States by National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
4.0
For a government report, this study is quite thorough, well written and interesting. It covers the 9/11 attacks from the planning phases in the 1990s through the attacks and the aftermath of the attacks in New York and Washington DC.
The first part of this book was about the planning of this attack. It was fascinating to read about the reasons why the Al Qaeda network planned this attack several years before it was carried out. Most fascinating were all of the small places where the plot was on the verge of falling apart, only to be saved by the determination of the terrorists and the incompetence of the security aparatus in the United States. At one point, a terrorist tried to bring equipment into the USA from Canada and was caught by border agents. Another terrorist took flight lessons from a man in Florida who alerted authorities that one of his students was interested in learning to fly but had no interest in learning to land a plane. At another time one of the terrorists went back to the Middle East to visit relatives and had trouble coming back to the States. Despite all of this, the organization managed to pull off the greatest terrorist attack in US history through sheer determination.
The rest of the book dealt with the local authorities who had to deal with the aftermath of the attack. They talked about the victims in the Twin Towers who were trapped in the upper floors and tried to escape through the roof, but no aircraft could get up there because of the heat eminating from the building. They could not take the stairs past the crash site because of the heat, so they starting jumping from the windows to certain death, since that was their only options. The authors talked about firemen who milled around the stairwells because they didn't know what to do and they didn't have orders directing them. And nobody knew that the heat from the crash had so degraded the integrity of the buildings that they would collapse, killing hundreds of firefighters who were still inside.
It was a dramatic story with great recommendations. Besides that, it reminds all of us how precious our freedom and our security really are. I would recommend that everyone read this book to truly understand what happened on September 11, 2001.
The first part of this book was about the planning of this attack. It was fascinating to read about the reasons why the Al Qaeda network planned this attack several years before it was carried out. Most fascinating were all of the small places where the plot was on the verge of falling apart, only to be saved by the determination of the terrorists and the incompetence of the security aparatus in the United States. At one point, a terrorist tried to bring equipment into the USA from Canada and was caught by border agents. Another terrorist took flight lessons from a man in Florida who alerted authorities that one of his students was interested in learning to fly but had no interest in learning to land a plane. At another time one of the terrorists went back to the Middle East to visit relatives and had trouble coming back to the States. Despite all of this, the organization managed to pull off the greatest terrorist attack in US history through sheer determination.
The rest of the book dealt with the local authorities who had to deal with the aftermath of the attack. They talked about the victims in the Twin Towers who were trapped in the upper floors and tried to escape through the roof, but no aircraft could get up there because of the heat eminating from the building. They could not take the stairs past the crash site because of the heat, so they starting jumping from the windows to certain death, since that was their only options. The authors talked about firemen who milled around the stairwells because they didn't know what to do and they didn't have orders directing them. And nobody knew that the heat from the crash had so degraded the integrity of the buildings that they would collapse, killing hundreds of firefighters who were still inside.
It was a dramatic story with great recommendations. Besides that, it reminds all of us how precious our freedom and our security really are. I would recommend that everyone read this book to truly understand what happened on September 11, 2001.