July 29-August 4, 2004

book quicks

The 9/11 Commission Report

by Patrick Rapa

The 9/11 Commission Report

Norton, 567 pp., $10

Of course, The 9/11 Commission Report is, first and foremost, a historical document. There are timelines and photos, overexplanatory tangents and multiple appendices. The language, while hardly nerdspeak, is mostly precise and restrained in its handling of dramatic sequences. And its chapters explore, in as much excruciating detail as is declassifiably possible, not just the events of one day but of every meeting, murder and military operation on both sides that led up to it. Sometimes all the plotting led to something. Sometimes not so much. So it goes.

So, in addition to being the most comprehensive primer on America's understanding of international terrorism, the Report is also a nearly novelized window into the everyday workings of a government simultaneously handcuffed and protected by its own sleepy bureaucracy and clumsy, nervous intelligence agencies.

Assumptions that we are mice in some grand, Orwellian oligarchy are, according to the book, way too generous. And, although you'll read plenty of espionage and technobabble, you won't find much Clancy or Crichton either. No, with its countless vignettes of institutional miscalculations, human frailty and fatal mistakes — plus its self-righteous nemeses playing by completely different moral rule books — the Report is distinctly Vonnegut.

Take, for instance, our government agencies' inflated sense of competence when dealing with Middle Eastern terrorism. This, we learn, comes from how swiftly and efficiently the perpetrators of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center were discovered, caught and punished. And indeed, some expert detective work went into tracking them down. But it also helped that Mohammed Salameh, the guy who rented the van that was filled with explosives and parked in the WTC garage, kept calling Ryder to get his $400 deposit back.

That U.S. law enforcement was, to a degree, undeservedly proud of its investigative prowess is explicitly and unapologetically concluded by the Report. Luck was mistaken for skill, plain and simple. After that, it seems, no matter how grave the danger, the threat was underestimated. On top of that, the CIA was "averse to risk" and the Counterterrorism Security Group suffered from "a dearth of bright ideas."

The book is full of imperfect people. Hijackers accidentally radio the FAA because they can't work the intercom. FAA managers refusing to be disturbed while discussing one hijacking, make themselves unavailable to be informed about a second. President Clinton — embroiled in the Lewinsky scandal during a time when, apparently, the movie Wag The Dog had people skeptical of politicians using war to distract from domestic issues — becomes reluctant to use force against bin Laden. Sometimes these things make a difference. Sometimes not so much. So it goes.