Earlier today, I finished the 9/11 Commission report after about two and half weeks of reading. I intend to use this diary to express my reactions, but more importantly to serve as a discussion for others who have read the report and a place for those who haven't read it to ask questions about it.
First, I'd like to dispell the impression among some that being a government report, it is overly wonky. It is not. Clearly the commissioners and their staff knew that if they wished to truly get public supprot for their recommendations, they would have to produce a report that the general public could understand. In terms of style, the narrative portion of the report reads something like Barbara Tuchman's
The Guns of August but much more detailed (e.g. times are sometimes given down to the second).
Overall the report tends to be soft on both Clinton and Bush. For the most part, it blames systemic problems for missed opportunites. Much of the reports focuses on the lack of information sharing, bureaucratic bungling, and the paltry application of inteligence analysis to operations and policy. The report reasonably defends Clinton when it points out that a full scale invasion of Afghanistan would not be supported by the US public and failed covert attempts/missile strikes on Usama Bin Laden usually had the result of increasing Bin Laden's stature and boosting his fundraising and recruiting efforts. It also points out that many of Clinton's decisions were misunderstood by the bureacracy. Many of the same troubles caused problems for Bush. It also points out reasonably that the delayed transition due to the 2000 election most certainly put Bush at a disadvantage in that many of his high level appointees in intelligence and defense were confirmed much later. At points the report is very critical of both Presidents' administrations but rarely of the Presidents themselves. To some extent, this is to be expected from a bipartisan administration. The commissioners obviously thought their recommendations would be more likely to adopted if they report was unaminously approved by the commisioners and therefore chose to not be particularly harsh on either President in order to achieve that unity.
Among the reports more interesting findings for those interested is that while the report does not repeat many of Richard Clarke's harshest criticisms of the Bush administration (many of which have to deal with Iraq, not 9/11) it does state that "perhaps the most incisive of the advisors on terrorism to the new administration was the holdover Richard Clarke." The report does assert that Iraq had no connection to Al-Qaeda; however, on the other hand it does not portray any official other than Paul Wolfowitz as seriously obsessed with an Iraq conenction after a handful of days had passed since 9/11. The report also seems to debunk some of Michael Moore's assertions regarding the so-called "Saudi Flights": "We found no evidence that any flights of Saudi nationals [...] took place before the reopening of national airspace on September 13, 2001 [...] and no evidence of political intervention." Overall the report comes off as overly kind to the Saudis in general (portraying them as pretty good but not perfect).
The true importance of this report is in its recommendations. Its recommendations regarding a National Intelligence Director and even more importantly a consolidated single National Counterterrorism Center are strong. Of special note, it is not entirely correct to say that the commision recommends the NID control all of the intelligence communities budget, as has been reported in the press. The commission recommends this with an exception that tactical military intelligence (where such and such troops are positioned for example), is kept decentralized, where it ought to be.
The reports' recommendations are suprisingly influenced by the Goldwater-Nichols reforms of the military during the 80s. The commision appears to hope that the success of "jointeness" in military operations will have the same effect on the intelligence community. No doubt since this involves "turf wars" getting these reforms enacted will probably be jsut as tough as Goldwater-Nichols was, if not more. It would appear that Kerry has an advantage over Bush in being able to support these reforms if only for the reason that unlike Bush that he does not already have a Secretary of Defense, DCI, Attorney General, and Secretary of State who will fight to protect their turf because obviously Kerry is the challenger. Since Kerry has already endoresed all the reports' recommendations, it will be understood that a requirement to be a member of Kerry's team is an acceptance of the recommendations. Bush on the other hand, would have to do battle with a turf-protecting Rumsfeld (who ironically is quoted in the report on the necessity of agencies cooperating and giving up turf battles for the good of the intelligence community) in order to get the reforms enacted.
I appologize for the lack of elequent style in this diary, I just wanted to get my thoughts down in a diary and out there for discussion as soon as I could.