The 9/11 Commission Reports
In what has to be one of the most-anticipated commission reports since the Warren Commission, the panel investigating the 9/11 attacks has delivered its final report to the president.
In MSNBC's telling, the report "slams 'deep' failings in government." Snippets:
"Since the 9/11 plotters were flexible and resourceful, we cannot know whether any single step or series of steps would have defeated them," the bipartisan commission said. "What we can say with confidence is that none of the measures adopted by the U.S. government from 1998 to 2001 disturbed or even delayed the progress" of the plot by the al-Qaida network.
The report, as expected, called for the appointment of an overall director of U.S. intelligence operations….
The report also debunks what commissioners called ?myths? that have built up around the terrorist strikes that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania, the officials said. Those include these findings:
* The Saudi government did not fund the 19 hijackers.
* Relatives of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden were not allowed to fly out of the country until after air traffic was allowed to move freely after it was grounded following the attacks. Moreover, those family members had no connection to the terrorist plot.
* Bush did not know about the specific threat beforehand, and there was little more that he could to prevent it….
The whole report is supposed to be released on the commission's web site later today.
