Customer Reviews

The 9/11 Report: The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

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You might be wondering what this printing of the book includes versus the others, so I've decided to make up a little grocery list.

1. This book isn't "authorized". That doesn't mean anything to me, but it might to you.
2. This book is cheaper than the authorized paperback version by a few dollars (at MSRP at least).
3. The book is physically smaller.
4. The book includes about 70 pages of reporting and analysis by the New York Times, which the authorized version DOES NOT have.
5. The book DOES NOT include the endnotes, whereas the authorized edition does. However, the superscript endnote references are still included in the text, and correspond to the endnotes section available on-line on the 9/11 Commission website.
6. This version includes the Executive Summary. I am not certain whether the authorized edition includes this or not, but I believe not.

You should be aware before buying either version of this report that the entire authorized edition of the text (including the executive summary and endnotes) is available for FREE on-line at the website for the 9/11 Commission. The only thing in this text that is not available on-line is the 70 pages of New York Times articles, which are (as far as I know) only available in this edition of the book.

The report is generally very interesting to read. It's not as boring as you might be expecting it to be. Any American concerned at all with his government and the fate of his country would do well to read this.

If you're going to buy an edition of the 9/11 Commission Report, this is probably the one you should get.

Here's why. You can download the whole report for free, in PDF format, from either the GPO or the website of the 9/11 Commission. That means you can read the whole thing on your computer without spending one red cent.

The 'official', and more expensive, editions of the book don't include any text you don't get in the PDF version. This New York Times edition does; it opens with nearly seventy pages of articles from the Grey Lady (none, I think, written by Jayson Blair) about the formation and activities of the Commission.

This edition doesn't include the endnotes, but it does include the superscripts that lead to the notes so that you can check them in the PDF files if you want to. If you're like me, when you sit down to read the report, you don't particularly want to flip back and look at the notes anyway; that's for later, if there's a point for which you want to check a source. And precisely because this edition doesn't include all those additional pages, it's easier to tote around for lunchtime reading.

Of course, since the report itself isn't protected by copyright in the U.S. (it's a government work), you can pretty much do what you want with the free electronic version -- including printing it out. But the paper for that job will probably cost you more than the price of this edition, and the result won't be very handy to lug around with you.

As for the report itself, well, I'm not going to review the content here. Just read it and make up your own mind; that's what we do here in America.

I picked up a copy of _The 9/11 Report_ just before taking a flight that went halfway across our country. What I expected was dull reading that would probably put me to sleep before I managed to glean an interesting nugget of information from it. Instead I was surprised by a very readable narrative. Here is no dull government report; _The 9/11 Report_ reads more like a novel. Chapter one opens with the takeover of the planes by the terrorists. The final chapter closes with some recommendations on how to reorganize our government in order to more effectively deal with the next terrorist attack. Along the way the report reveals that there were no WMD's in Iraq at the time of the US attack, there was no working relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and that "the system was blinking red" during the months just prior to 9/11.

One particularly interesting item in the report is that in a meeting held on 9/11 Paul Wolfowitz, not Donald Rumsfeld argued that Iraq was the source of the attack and therefore should be attacked in return. Colin Powell later observed that Wolfowitz always saw Iraq as a problem and wanted to use the 9/11 events as a way to deal with Iraq. Since Wolfowitz also estimated the total cost of the Iraqi war at only $70 billion and that most of it could be paid for with Iraqi oil, I decided to check the footnote for this particular item.

That is when I found out that due to the length of the book, all of the footnotes were excluded, but they could be found at a couple of websites including [...] Going to that website, I found all of the extensive footnotes. I also found the entire text of The 9/11 Report. So what does this book add to what is online? Primarily it adds the news coverage of the NY Times. Even the cast of characters involved in the 9/11 events and a 34 page summary of the report are available online.

It is certainly too late for me to read this report as I started to read it in 2009. Thus at the very early beginning, my view in fact was biased because I had seen what happened after 9/11. Perhaps, my bias towards this report was strengthened after reading several reviews on this report.

However, I admit my bias after reading because I found it balanced and forward looking based on that I can see the efforts by many experts and people who concern the event of 9/11.

I picked this up at a convenience store near my work (sorry Amazon). Being Canadian there may be debate about its relevence to my life. However the attacks of 9/11 impacted more than just Americans, it affected their Northern neighbours as well.
I then showed this to my manager whom is way more political than myself and he compared it to the Warren Commision and their report without even having read it. Well much as I respect de boss man I had to read this for myself.

The back summarizes and promises much, including the truth behind the events of 9/11, security measures proposed to prevent a similiar attack on American soil, and an update on the reworkings of the U.S. Intelligence community.

From the beginning I learnt much I had not known being an oh so casual observer of events from my lofty perch in Canada. I was unaware the bombing of The WTC in 1993 had such close ties to the eventual attacks on 9/11. I had been ignorant of much of Bin Ladens origins and how he managed to build the al Queda as a terrorist force to inspire well terror.

This book is written with a casual and effect relationship clear in mind and many findings are the results of an intense and often controversial investigation by the bi-partisan commission.

The proposals are reasonable, concise and only a little extreme when taken out of context. The commission is obviously first and foremost concerned with the truth, and then about protecting the States and instituting changes so they do not happen again.

Overall an educational tome even for an apolitical canuck like myself.