Excellent Report on How Our Government 'Sort Of' Works 
We have established a whole industry in this country of refusing to believe anything the government says about Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy conspiracy, UFO's, and it was inevitable that the same would be applied to the 9/11 commission report. In fact, it was predictable that whatever they found, whatever they published it was going to be immediately considered a whitewash, cover-up, fraud. The scream louder people in the media, the books written by 'independent investigators,' the movies that will be produced will all point to some unknown direction. They will all be different directions than the official report, and different directions than each other.
This book is not about what happened on 9/11, instead it is on how the 9/11 commission worked. It's a story of how our government works. The commission was put together with both democrats and republicans (the Bush administration had the power to only put republicans on the commission but didn't). The next election was approaching. Government agencies were seeking to cover their own blame. The media was eager to report on stumbles and mistakes. On the whole, they seem to have done pretty good.
It isn't pretty, but this is the way our government works. It's an excellent and most interesting book.
The Day We Will Never Forget & Its Lingering Rancor. 
Millions of words have been written about the personal devastation of the attacks on our country on 9-11-01. We've been inudated with pictures, books, accounts of suffering, and the coverup by the Pentagon. It's been almost five years, and we all remember where we were and what we were doing on that terrible day, as we did when John Kennedy was killed. Now, with the publication of this 20-month investigation by Congress, we learn of the inaccurate information, confidentiality claims, and repeated misstatements by the pentagon and FAA.
Personally, I am familiar with the name of Lee Hamilton as he has been instrumental in airing the facts on other tragedies. None were quite as devastating as this tragic day in September. I was at the hospital waiting for a test on my liver, and could not believe that America (the land of the brave) would have a suicide bomber. After my test, when I learned that I was not going to die so soon, I was made cognizant of that fact that it was not just one, but three flights of passengers who lost their lives on the day mine was given back to me. It was a scary aspect of this whole terrorist business.
The new movie is mostly about two rescuers who get trapped in the rubble and have to work hard to survive, but it gives a quick montage of people around the world, including the Arabs, watching t.v. reports in stunned disbelief. It is impossible to understand another's sorrow, but this indepth official report can help us to understand what happened on that fatal day, and why they happened in three different places simultaneously. It was well planned. Thank God, the fourth plane did not work out.
A panel of five Republicans and five Democrats were assigned to work out this report. We all know that the two parties are not exactly compatible and will automatically have opposing opinions on any subject. They were directed to investigate government missteps, but were thwarted from the presidency on down. They wrote: "We did not get all the information we needed to put on the public record." That's typical of the government's need to hide relavent facts from the public -- always has and always will. They were given access to government documents and worked from there to make it understandable for the general populace. We're not all geniuses but most can smell a coverup of a large porportion. After all, we don't want the same group to know what we know, as they will (and have) try again and again. They obviously have no respect for life, even their own, and use ploys to die in their places. Such is the way of a barbaric society.
This finding shows no collaborative relationship between Hussein and al-Quida, so let the man go. They will deal with him their own way. This trial has been a farce and he lost all his respectability and humanity by having to hide in a bunker underground and then be treated as he was in the courtroom. He was the leader of a country. How would we feel if our president was treated thusly!
The New York firefighters were indeed heroes, but so were the victims who were brave enough to fight back. Their rancor has caused a setback on the amount of evidence and public accessibilty to all the facts. We never will know the full story because some had to made such an issue. My town even bought and took a brand new, special fire truck and presented it to Mayor Guilani, a bad mistake. He just wanted the attention and adulation to cover up his messy divorce. Some people in politics will always take advantage to make show a false image of themselves. Mr. Hamilton and Thomas Kean did a remarkable job of correlating the mass of information they were given. It could have taken another year or so if they had been able to obtain more relevant reasons why it happened in the first place. We will always wonder.
A rare inside look at Washington political process 
I found this book fascinating. There are rarely Washington insiders with the narrative talent and an appreciation for process, and in this case, we have a book that provides both. The careful negotiations, resistance and calculations by federal agencies, the push and pull of partisan politics and the unique friendly-adversarial role of the 911 families provide for absorbing reading. If nothing else, the use of careful diplomacy by the authors in knowing when to wheedle and when to subpoena is a lesson unto itself. The delicacy of diplomacy and the ham-handedness of security considerations provide a rare insight into the difficulties of maneuvering inside the beltway, and the differences amongst and amidst the commission itself are more than simple sniping -- they are in many ways a laboratory for American political struggles. Recommended for policy wonks and aspiring diplomats, and for those, like me, who'd rather get the inside scoop on the White House than Hollywood.
reviews: page 1, 2
The untold story of how the 9/11 Commission overcame partisanship and bureaucracy to produce its acclaimed report.
From the beginning, the 9/11 Commission found itself facing obstacles ? the Bush administration blocked its existence for months, the first co-chairs resigned right away, the budget was limited, and a polarized Washington was suspicious of its every request. Yet despite these long odds, the Commission produced a bestselling report unanimously hailed for its objectivity, along with a set of recommendations that led to the most significant reform of America?s national security agencies in decades. This is a riveting insider?s account of Washington at its worst ? and its best.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
without precedent, precedent, without
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