The 9/11 Commission Report: A Review Essay

Overview

In a review essay, Richard Falkenrath of the Brookings Institution provides a detailed assessment of The 9/11 Commission Report. Falkenrath, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and former Deputy Assistant to President George W. Bush and Deputy Homeland Security Adviser within the White House, praises the report’s historical analysis. He writes that the report’s first nine chapters “should become a basic text” that “will have lasting influence as a resource for generations of students and government practitioners.” The report’s discussion of the government’s failures of imagination, policy, capabilities, and management neither explain how different policies could have prevented the September 11 attacks nor identifies which government officials were responsible. Falkenrath argues that the report’s policy recommendations are not based on its analysis of the events leading up to the September 11 attacks.