Talk:9/11 Commission

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. —Nightstallion (?) 11:13, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States → 9/11 Commission … Rationale: As per common name rule. Even the commission uses 9-11commission.gov as its URL, most links seem to go to 9/11 Commission and there is already an entry 9/11 Commission Report, etc.

Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support as the nominator ~ trialsanderrors 01:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Support: use common name. Thumbelina 18:00, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

The "9/11 Commission" is without a doubt, the best name. All the books and websites I've researched have referred to it by that name, and most users use this name when typing in searches. I believe that Wikipedia will get many more relevant hits using this name. Editorially speaking, I find that the majority of Wikipedia's content sways in favor of the 9/11 Commission's "official story". I feel that before this farsical version of those events gets engrained in our nation's psyche any further, we should demand a truly independent investigation so our future history books can be more accurately written. Our kids need to know that Old Glory contains a lot more RED, than it does white and blue.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.174.79.226 (talk • contribs) .

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Criticism section

In the Criticism section, it is currently organized:

1. Criticism of Democrats
2. Criticism of the White House
3. Criticism of Commission Members

I think this could be better organized. For one thing, having criticism of Democrats first makes it seem like that's the most important or noteworthy criticism, which is not the case. (Although it's hard for me to have npov about it.) Second, I think there will always be criticisms of Rs by Ds and by Ds of Rs in any situation, and I think that's barely noteworthy. Ds and Rs might say things in Congress, but only their acts (e.g. extending the commission's deadline) are important, IMHO.

I would divide it like this:

1. Criticism of bias within the commission. (Mentioning potential pro-airline, pro-R, and pro-D bias)
2. Criticism that the commission is being stonewalled. (Mentioning actions by the White House and Congress)
3. Criticism that the commission is being used for partisan purposes (Mostly of Ds)

I think this would be better, but I don't want to unilaterally make such a big change. What do you think?

Quadell 14:36, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think your idea is good. The current subheadings are ambiguous. Does "Criticism of Democrats" mean Democratic criticism of the Commission, or criticism of the Democrats on the Commission, or just criticism of Democratics in general pertaining to the Commission? Bkonrad | Talk 14:47, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm not fond of criticizing pages that I don't have the expertise to fix, but I think that this article could focus more on the substantive actions of the commission -- such as its numerous high-profile depositions -- and less on the controversy surrounding it. Matthewmeisel 03:16, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

That's going to happen when the final report is released. For the time being, I'm creating a new section on the contents of the final report. I'll just add the Iran-Al-Queda rumors for now. Gregb 18:43, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

News media is reporting that over 500,000 copies of the report have been printed to be sold. Any idea where the money is going? After all any work produced by US government is public domain. --Yakovsh 05:29, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I would assume that it's like any other printed work, that the money's going to the bookseller, and ending up at the organizations printing it. Just like how we can publish and get paid for copies of Shakespeare plays, even though those are public domain. --Gregb 05:48, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Criticism of the report

Two points. One, shouldn't there be a separate article for the 9/11 Commission Report? The book is different from the commission itself, and I have made lots of link from other articles that say something like "According to the 9/11 Commission Report. . ." It would seem more natural to split this article into the commission and the report. Does anyone object if I do this?

Second, gregb recently removed this link to criticism of the report: An unresolved mystery: The mass murder of 9/11 His reason was "Link wasn't up to the caliber of the other three. Criticisms are A-OK, as long as they're cogent. Non-addressal of small ambiguities != coverup"

That's a perfectly valid opinion, but it's still an opinion, as I see it. I see a POV issue, and I think that link (or a different one on the same topic) ought to be included. As for criticism of the report, the report's still new, so there aren't too many options. There's the above, from Global Research California, basically summing up the disagreements from different parties. There's this article by the World Socialist Web Site, saying the report let the CIA off the hook too easy. There's this from a Hindu business magazine, saying the report let Pakistan and Saudi Arabia off the hook too easy. And there's this from Defense Talk, that's basically a watered-down version of all of the above. We ought to include at least one link. Any preference?

I guess my main concern was that the link cited was a poor representation of the critics of the report. The particular bit cited in that article is IMHO blown way out of proportion. There are waay juicier targets in the report. I would suggest the article about Pakistan and Saudi Arabia personally. A possible solution would be to create a section within the article for post-release criticisms of the report. I would preferably have added it when I removed the link, but I wasn't as knowledgable about the issue (which led to my subsequent exploration and editing of the 9-11 conspiracy article). I'd welcome just a section that mentions those criticisms. In lieu of that, the pakistan and Saudi Arabia link as well as the Defense Talk article would be wonderful. Sorry for the somewhat cryptic edit summary and my rather abrupt way of handling things. It's just a problem with external links, because you can't improve the content of said external links :) --Gregb 16:45, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In lieu of a response, I went ahead and added the latter two links to the article. Hopefully this'll make for more balance. --Gregb 19:22, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There is a separate article, Criticisms of the 9/11 Commission Report, that is listed as the main article. Shouldn't much of the material in 'criticisms' be moved there? Tom Harrison ^Talk 21:36, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I looked over the criticisms section in the article, and found them to mostly be criticisms of the commission. There is no main article (that I can find) for criticisms of the commission, so the link to a main article for this section should be removed completely. I think that the link to the commission's report as the main article right under that header is inappropriate, inconsistent, and misleading. There is already a link under the report section for that page, and it is appropriate. Umeboshi 23:37, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

oops, this comment belongs in the criticisms section above. Umeboshi 23:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Were all hijackers Saudi?

The article says "The commission also concluded all the 19 hijackers that carried out the attacks where all from Saudi Arabia". Did the report really say that? I think this is incorrect. Indeed, 15 of them were Saudi nationals, but those were the "muscle men". The pilots and brains were all not Saudis. Namely, Mohammed Atta, the leader, was Egyptian, Ziad Jarrah was Lebanese, and Marwan al-Shehhi was from the UAE. Fayez Banihammad was also not a Saudi, though not a lead figure in the hijacking. Only one pilot/leader/planner was a Saudi, Hani Hanjour. Can anyone who read all of the report point us to what it really says? -- KB 17:06, 2004 Aug 8 (UTC)

That is flat out wrong. 15 were Saudi, and 4 were egyptian. →Raul654 17:07, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)

How can you say that 4 were Egyptians? Only one was Egyptian (Atta), and there are two from the UAE, and one from Lebanon. Add to that 15 Saudis, and you have 19 total! Please state your source. Or is it just an allegation? -- KB 03:45, 2004 Aug 9 (UTC)

The 15/4 numbers are what were widely reported after the attacks. →Raul654 03:55, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

No. The media reports said 15/4, but never said 4 were all Egyptians. I did the break down above, and Quadell below points to the correct breakdown: 15 Saudis, 1 Egyptian, 1 Lebanese, and 2 from UAE. It is notable to see that all the muscle was from Saudi, while the planner/brains/pilots were mostly not. In the end, the report was correct, and it was misquoted in the original wording of the wikipedia article. I guess that was the point I was making to begin with, and it is now settled. -- KB 15:48, 2004 Aug 10 (UTC)

Ahem. According to the report, 15 were from Saudi Arabia, one was from Lebanon (Jarrah), one was from Egypt (Atta), and two were from the United Arab Emirates (Banihammad and al-Shehhi). (I don't ever recall seeing a 15/4 allegation; the names and origins of the 19 hijackers were reported by the FBI the week after the attacks.) You can peruse through the various organizers of the September 11, 2001 attacks for details. I've been working on them for the past couple weeks, and I'm quite proud of the articles. Quadell (talk) 14:25, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

The Great "Terrorism" Debate

There's a debate going on at Talk:September 11, 2001 attacks#The Great "Terrorism" Debate that may interest followers of this article. – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 11:56, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Ed Asner doesn't belong here

There are other articles where this would be better placed, like List of people questioning the official American 9/11 account. Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

created how?

How was the commission "set up in late 2002"? By whom, and in what way? I was just curious about those things, but can't find anything in the article about it with a quick skim. Fresheneesz 04:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

You are quite right. That part of the Commission's history is sorely lacking. Anyone interested in writing something up with sources?--JustFacts 23:25, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

YouTube links

This article is one of thousands on Wikipedia that have a link to YouTube in it. Based on the External links policy, most of these should probably be removed. I'm putting this message here, on this talk page, to request the regular editors take a look at the link and make sure it doesn't violate policy. In short: 1. 99% of the time YouTube should not be used as a source. 2. We must not link to material that violates someones copyright. If you are not sure if the link on this article should be removed, feel free to ask me on my talk page and I'll review it personally. Thanks. ---J.S (t|c) 07:05, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

References and links

This page was flagged due to the inconsistency in its linking and referencing. I think I have it fixed, if someone could please go through and double-check my work. There were two references I could not verify existed...if you feel those unreferenced sentences should just be deleted then it probably should. akronpow 21:08, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Language problem

The obviously official text says ... including preparedness for (and the immediate response to) the attacks. I have a problem to understand this: preparedness for the attacs is a bit late. they already happened. Or: who prepared them? The commission? Maybe people with English as mother-tongue can explain. In the Esperanto-translation in Vikipedia it reads even more funny --Hans W 16:06, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Title Correction

I believe that the title of this page is misleading. This title purports to be a discussion of the 9/11 Commission, but in reality is simply a discussion of potential (and mostly unsubstantiated) biases and criticisms of the commission's constituents and their associated backgrounds.

A simple word count reveals that 69.8% of the text is dedicated to discussing criticisms of the commission leaving a paltry 30% to actual factual discussions of the commission.

This Wiki should be renamed "Criticisms of the 9/11 Commission" or "Alleged Bias of 9/11 Commissioners." To retain its current title the Wiki should be edited to include unbiased biographies of commission members and/or policy considerations taken up, possibly followed by a discussion of conclusions and/or subsequent policy implementation.

I appreciate your responses in advance. --BlutoBlutarsky 16:25, 23 April 2007

I agree, section 5 should be its on article.

I agree, it looks like the bulk of the article is taken over by criticisms. I tried to summarize the criticisms here and I created Criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report for the detail. I linked to the later from this article. Feel free to copyedit to read better, etc. Johntex\^talk 04:12, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Sandy Berger

I think that the Sandy Berger section is important but is too long and is far from being the most important criticism of the work of the Commission. I propose that the entire Berger section be moved way down in the article and made a bit more succinct. --NYCJosh 00:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and I edited out most of it and suggested creating a new article on Berger separately. I hate the guy too, but it made the overall article appear biased. 207.82.44.3 16:12, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

This whole section was just a cut-and-paste copy (with references totally broken!) of a long section in the Sandy Berger article. It's foolish to have the same material in two places, so I've just replaced what was here with a wlink back to the Berger article. Personally, I think that this material should be in its own article, as it's thrown the Sandy Berger article out of balance, but that's an argument for elsewhere. Wasted Time R 14:14, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Why all the talk about it?

witheal101

If it was such a bad thing then why is the media enjoying talking about it. And why are we blameing Iraq for all we know it could of been N. Korea.66.82.9.58 11:51, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Conflicts

I removed:

• Thomas Kean has a history of investments that link him to Saudi Arabian investors who have financially supported both George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden in the past. One example is his former business connections to Khalid bin Mahfouz, an alleged terrorist financier. He was also at one point or still is on the board of Pepsi Bottling, Amerada Hess, UnitedHealth Group, CIT Group and Aramark.
• Fred F. Fielding has done legal work for two of Bush's leading "Pioneer" fund-raisers. Fielding also works for a law firm lobbying for Spirit Airlines and United Airlines.
• Slade Gorton has close ties to Boeing, which built all the planes destroyed on 9/11, and his law firm represents several major airlines, including Delta Air Lines.
• James Thompson is the head of a law firm that lobbies for American Airlines, and he has previously represented United Airlines.
• Richard Ben-Veniste has represented Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe, and continues to represent Boeing and United Airlines.
• Max Cleland, former U.S. Senator, has received $300,000 from the airline industry. He publicly complained about the White House's refusal to cooperate, then was appointed head of the U.S. Export/Import Bank by the president and resigned from the Commission.
• Lee Hamilton sits on many advisory boards, including those to the CIA, the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council, The United States Commission on National Security, and the US Army.
• Tim Roemer represents Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

because these were all uncited claims about living people. They can be put back in, with citations. Superm401 - Talk 23:49, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Why is the criticism under a section called 'conspiracy theory' ? It's not a conspiracy theory that witnesses were intimidated. It's actually fact now. Please research the subject and change the title. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.35.233.163 (talk) 19:34, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

lol intimidated ur really are a moron for being a sheep to alex jones and loose change.

speaking about conspiracy theories did u guys noe im actually a lizard.

Exchange of letters between Kean/Hamilton and Rumsfeld/Tenet/Ashcroft

This document, p. 26f., contains some pertinent information about the relationship between the 9/11 Commission and members of the administration at the time. It's a primary source, of course. Maybe someone has got the time to search for related secondary sources on this.  Cs32en Talk to me  18:37, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Pages 25 through 30 document a request from the 9/11 Commission for access to detainee interrogations, and the response to that request from Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, and Tenet. MSNBC wrote an article on this topic in 2008.(ref) From the MSNBC article: "Remember," the intelligence official said, "The Commission had access to the intelligence reports that came out of the interrogation. This didn't satisfy them. They demanded direct personal access to the detainees and the administration told them to go pound sand." Page 26 of the CIA document shows the (apparently proposed) tripartite response: "As the officers of the United States responsible for the law enforcement, defense and intelligence functions of the Government, we urge your Commission not to further pursue the proposed request to participate in the questioning of detainees." This topic is briefly covered in the Criticism of the 9/11 Commission article, using the MSNBC article as a reference. It's interesting to see some of the actual communications behind the issue, from the primary sources. Wildbear (talk) 03:49, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Inaccuracies

"George W. Bush - President; refused to testify under oath. Refused to testify in public. Refused to testify separately from Dick Cheney. Refused to have testimony transcribed or recorded"

The link provided for these claims does not say any of this though. He didn't refuse to testify under oath, the article says that "testimony was not under oath". A bit different. Refused to testify in public is unclear, same as with Cheney. About the transcription the text is "Under the White House conditions, the testimony was not recorded, nor was a stenographer present to make a formal transcript. Rather, commission members were allowed to take detailed notes during the meeting"

and

"the session was not officially transcribed because the White House considered it a "private meeting" in which highly classified information would be discussed."

This should be corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Idonthavetimeforthiscarp (talk • contribs) 20:31, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Modified accordingly. In case of doubt, please read the article used as source to confront the claims in the wiki article and those in the actual article. I am not a native English speaker so feel free to improve grammar etc.Idonthavetimeforthiscarp 20:23, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Which recommendations were implemented?

It would be very useful to have listed, either here or on 9/11 Commission Report which recommendations were actually implemented, when, and by which law or regulation. -- Beland (talk) 21:29, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

George Tenet testimony

I've just re-removed the para on an error in George Tenet's testimony being corrected by the CIA - no reason is given for why this is significant, and it's hardly unusual for people to make mistakes in testimony to hearings and then promptly correct the record as seems to have happened here. Nick-D (talk) 10:23, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

There isn't any basis for selecting one bit of testimony -- Tenet's -- and giving it its own section. Tom Harrison ^Talk 11:56, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

The question that Tenet was asked: Did Tenet meet with Bush during the summer of 2011 is most important as the follow up question would be: what did you tell the president? Remember Tenet said that he was running around Washington telling everyone the "System is blinking red!" (A title of a chapter in the 9/11 Commision Report).--Cgersten 12:19, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

That seems to be your opinion. For this material to be worth considering, it needs to be supported by a strong citation to a reliable source which identifies it as being a significant issue during the Commission's hearings. Nick-D (talk) 07:33, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Addition needed for Thomas Kean

Please add to the Heading the September 11 Commission heading

The Commission will reassemble in Washington on July 22, 2014, for the tenth anniversary of the issuance of its report. It will assess how well the government is performing given current terrorist threats and make recommendations for changes moving forward. http://bipartisanpolicy.org/events/2014/07/911-commission-report-ten-years-later

Note: it is important that this is added to the page,for Kean will play a key role in these upcoming proceedings. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Govhistoryarchivecn (talk • contribs) 16:44, 14 July 2014 (UTC) — Govhistoryarchivecn (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on 9/11 Commission. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060427145915/http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/13/kissinger.resigns/ to http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/13/kissinger.resigns/
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0%2C8599%2C437267%2C00.html
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0%2C8599%2C565974%2C00.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 13:03, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• 911Commissioners HIGHRES.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:07, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• 911Commissioners HIGHRES.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:18, 22 January 2021 (UTC)