9/11 Commission Report

The definitive government account of the most consequential day in twenty-first century American history. Prepared by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, this report documents the events, failures, and decisions that led to September 11, 2001, and those that failed to prevent it. Drawing on over two years of investigation, interviews with hundreds of witnesses, and access to classified intelligence, the Commission reconstructs the hijackers' movements, traces the breakdown in communication between the CIA and FBI, and examines how the government missed repeated warning signs. But this is more than an institutional autopsy. It is a reckoning with what we owe the dead, and what we owe the living. The report's final words, 'We present this report to the American people with a sense of solemn responsibility', capture its gravity. Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how America arrived at that morning, and what it promised to do differently afterward.