The book at hand is at the top of the best-seller list and has been for some time. It consists of the report and analysis of the President Commission appointed to investigate the tragedy of September 11, 2001. That this book has sold so well and attracted so much attention bespeaks the proliferating interest in foreign policy that is now sweeping the nation.

The major weakness of this report is that it commits the same sin it accuses various federal agencies of, i.e. failing to 'connect the dots.' That is, these agencies are said to have not shared information or taken note of the fact that various perpetrators taking lessons in flying a plane – but not wishing to learn how to land. Note was not taken of 'terrorists' with over-extended visas and suspicious travel plans and financial transactions. The Commission Report at hand fails to connect the 'contra' war in Afghanistan particularly with the rise of Osama bin-Laden especially and so-called 'Islamic fundamentalism' generally. Nor does the Report consider that the 'Cold War', to an extent, was 'phony' in that there was never a serious 'threat' of the former Soviet Union attacking the US and this allowed US security to become lax, slack and inattentive. Now that there is a real and pressing danger, US security agencies find it hard to make the adjustment. The Report criticizes the 'failure of imagination' within the Government in that the possibility of hijacked suicide airplane bombers was not contemplated. Yet there is an equal 'failure of imagination' in this report in its own failure to 'connect the dots' between the Cold War and the present 'threat' to US territory posed by 'terrorism.'

Still, there is much to criticize in the misfeasance and malfeasance of various government agencies. The Treasury Department, for example, still has more personnel monitoring financial transactions concerning Cuba than transactions concerning 'Islamic fundamentalism.' Before 9/11 'the FBI had never completed an assessment of the overall terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland,' though it has not spared revenue or time in infiltrating and disrupting various left-wing organizations. The FBI also 'lacked sufficient translators proficient in Arabic and other key languages, resulting in a significant backlog of untranslated intercepts.' (p.77) But this latter faction is also a by-product of the attack on the humanities in the academy. Thus 'the total number of undergraduate degrees granted in Arabic in all US colleges and universities in 2002 was six.' (p. 92) The FBI comes under notable scrutiny in these pages. Like the military, it is a bastion of conservative, right-wing sentiments. Thus, this agency under Director Louis Freeh, was wildly hostile to the Clinton Administration and spent considerable time seeking to undermine the White House then. This agency 'shared almost no information' with other agencies, as well. (p.359) Again, the Report does not 'connect' these weaknesses to the reactionary culture developed in the FBI during the darkest days of the Cold War.

Inferentially, the Report raises disturbing questions about U.S. technology. Thus, the perpetrators of 9/11 'wanted to hijack Boeing aircraft because [they] believed them easier to fly than Airbus aircraft which he understood had an autopilot feature that did not allow them to be crashed into the ground.' (p. 245) It would have been useful if the Commission had asked if this crucial factor was due to the primacy of cost-cutting in the 'free enterprise' US versus a contrasting ethos more often to be found in the European Union's Airbus.

On the other hand, the Report does detail bin Laden's various enterprises in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, e.g. Zagreb and Sarajevo especially. This raises intriguing questions about the collaboration between Washington and Al Qaeda in the breakup of this multi-ethnic state – something that the Report does not pursue. Similarly note is taken of an 'Egyptian Islamic Jihad office in Baku' in the former Soviet Union. Much more attention needs to be paid to how as a result of the vacuum brought by the assault on socialism and, likewise, as a result of conscious policies in Washington, this 'Islamist' trend began to accelerate.

There were those who strived mightily to connect Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein but the Report points out that bin Laden 'had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqui Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army.' (p. 61)

Yet, US ally Pakistan is known to have had close ties with both the Taliban and Al Qaeda. 'Officials in Washington,' for example, 'speculated that one or another Pakistani official might have sent a warning to the Taliban or bin Ladin' when Washington was planning assaults on both. Similarly, the Report acknowledges that 'Saudi Arabia has long been considered the primary source of Al Qaeda funding...' (p. 171), though it fails to follow up aggressively on this profound point. This is even more curious in light of the emphasis placed on this matter in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.

The Report makes much of alleged ties between Iran and Al Qaeda; however, these words have to be read cautiously, in light of the new found fervor among hawks in Washington for the prospect of attacking Teheran, in light of its attempt to develop civilian nuclear power. Indeed, going forward the possibility of a raging conflagration involving the US and Israel versus Iran has to be confronted frontally by peace forces.

Now some of the recommendations of the Report are valid, e.g. more US foreign aid targeting education – particularly education for girls – in nations e.g. Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Overall, however, though this is a book that merits its best-seller status, potential readers should recognize that – like the federal agencies that it criticizes sharply – this Report largely fails to 'connect the dots.'



THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT: FINAL REPORT ON THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES, NY: Norton, 2004



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