NCTAUUS

in classified, compartmentalized sections. This is nine eleven, two decades later. I'm Steve Gregory in Los Angeles. Within a year of the attacks, Congress drafted legislation to create the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, commonly referred to

as the nine eleven Commission. On November twenty seventh, two thousand to, President George W. Bush signed the legislation, which mandated a full and complete accounting of the attacks of September eleven, two thousand one, and recommendations as to how

to prevent such attacks in the future. With a budget of fifteen million dollars and eighty people on staff, the Commission would research, compile, and report on eight points of interest, including al Qaeda and the organization of the nine eleven attack,

Intelligence collection, analysis, and management. International counter terrorism policy including states that harbor or harbored terrorists, terrorists financing border security and foreign visitors, law enforcement and intelligence collection inside the United States, Commercial aviation and transportation security, including the investigation into the four hijackings, and the immediate response to the attacks at the national, state, and local levels, including issues

of continuity of government. On July twenty, two, thousand four, the nine eleven Commission issued its final report to Congress. The following month, the chair and vice chair of the Commission would sit before the Armed Services Committee to discuss the report and take questions. One such exchange happened between

Democratic Congresswoman Nita Lowey and Committee Chair Thomas Kane. In your report, you say, quote, it must take into consideration the full array of possible enemy tactics, such as the use of insires. Did the Commission intend for airport workers, cabin cleaners, maintenance crews, caterers who are currently permitted to bypass metal detectors? Should they be given antiquated badges or

should everyone have to go through medical excuse me? Metal detectives, and I've been repeatedly told by T s A it's too inconvenient and costly to screen all airport workers, despite the fact that a hundred percent of workers have physically screened at airports like Heathrow, almost a hundred percent at

Child de Gall This doesn't make sense to me. If you could can continue to weigh in on that issue, because I'm sure you agree that everyone should be going through medical detectives metal detectives, and as a New Yorker, it disturbs me that currently we are so worried about security in the New York area, yet thousands of people are going through every day with antiquated badges. And if we're going to carry out your recommendations, I would like

to hear your recommendations as to an adjustment. And since my time is running out, if you can comment on airport security, in particular the fact that thousands of people are currently going through the metal detectors, uh that thousands of people are not going through the metal detectors with

their badges, thank you very much. Well, everybody should go through metal detectives, I believe without we have to wait for structural change, or do you think we can implement that now, ow can it be implemented by executive order? We can't seem to move the f A A or T s A and business keeps talking about an inconvenience.

How can we get that done? Now? Well, you could probably an answer that, knowing probably more about government than I do, But I don't know what the how you can do these kind of things by executive order, or whether you can or whether you have to have something through the United States Congress that I just don't have the expertise to answer that. But it should be done, There's no There's no question about it. I believe that if we're going to create less terrorists change minds in

the Arab world, we've got to change. We can't just be viewed as a military power. We've got to get back to some of the things we used to do in the Cold War to try to win that cold Cold War and change minds. And that involved not only education expenses, but cultural exchanges, ways in which with student exchanges, ways in which show we allowed these people to get to know us and that we had a better understanding

of them. I mean, we've got to get into those with some people call soft areas we we we've got to let these people know who we are, and we've got to understand in a much better way who they are. And I'm not talking about the small percentage you want to kill us. I'm talking about the much lodge of a centage now who don't really like us at all because of what they know of us right now. But if we were able to send a different message, might like us a bit better. After the release of the report,

the ten commissioners held a press conference. Here's a portion of that conference with opening statements by Chairman Thomas Kine. Today we present this report and these recommendations to the President of the United States, to the United States Congress, and the American people. This report represents the unanimous conclusion of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States.

On September eleven, two thousand and one, nineteen men armed with knives, box cutters, mace, and pepper spray penetrated the defenses of the most powerful nation in the world. They inflicted unbearable trump on our people. At the same time, they turned the international order upside down. Now, we recognize as commissioners that we have the benefit of hindsight and since the plotters were flexible and resourceful, we cannot know whether any single step or series of steps would have

defeated them. What we can say with a good deal of confidence is that none of the measures adopted by the United States government before eleven disturbed or even delayed the progress of the al Qaeda plot. There were several unexploited opportunities. Our government did not watch list future hijackers Osmi and Minhof before they arrived in the United States or take adequate steps to find them once they were here.

Our government did not link the arrest of zachairas Massawi described as interested in flight training for the purpose of using airplane as a terrorist act to the heightened indications of attack. Our government did not discover false statements and visa applications, or recognized passports that were manipulated in a fraudulent manner. Our government did not expand no Fly List to include names from terrorist watchless or require airline passages

to be more thoroughly screened. These examples make up part of a broader national security picture where the government failed to protect the American people. The United States government was simply not active enough in batting the terrorist threat before eleven, diplomacy and foreign policy failed to extract Unladen from his Afghan sanctuary. Our military forces and covert action capabilities did not have the options on the table to defeat al Qaeda or kill or capture either Ben Laden or his

top lieutenants. Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies did not manage or share information or effectively follow leaves to keep pace with a very nimble enemy. Our border, immigration, and aviation security agencies were not integrated into the counter terrorism effort, and much of a response on a day of nine eleven was improvised and ineffective, even as extraordinary individual acts of heroism saved countless lives. Our failures took place over

many years and administrations. There's no single individual who is responsible for our failures. Yet individuals and institutions cannot be absolved of responsibility. Any person in a senior position within our government during this time bears some element of responsibility for our government's actions. Having said that, it is not our purse to assign blame. As we said at the outset, we look back so that we can look forward. Our

goal is to prevent future attacks. Every expert with whom we spoke toldness, an attack of even greater magnitude is now possible and even probable. We do not have the luxury of time. We must prepare and we must act. The al Qaida network and its affiliates are sophisticated, patient, disciplined, and lethal. Osama bin Laden built an infrastructure and organization that was able to attract, train, and use recruits against even more ambitious targets. He rallied New Zealots with each

demonstration of Alakaida's capability. His message and his hate filled ideology have instructed and inspired untol recruits and imitators. He in al Qaeda despise America and its policies. They exploit political grievances and hopelessnesses within the Arab and Islamic world.

They indoctrinate to disaffect it and pervert one of the great world's great religions, and they seek creative methods to kill Americans in limitless numbers, including if they can do it with the use of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Put simply, the United States is faced with one of the greatest security challenges in our long history. Because al Qaeda represents an ideology, not a finite group of people. We should not expect the danger to receive greatly as

years to come. No matter whom we kill a capture, including Osama bin Laden himself, there will be still those who plot against us. And Laden has inspired affiliates and imitates. The societies they prey on are vulnerable. The terrorist ideology is potent, and the means for a conflicting harm are readily available. We cannot let our God down. Congressman Hamilton's

I begin with the recommendations. This commission, of course does not have all of the answers, but we have thought about to do a global strategy and how to do it a different way of organizing our government. But based on our third review of the government's performance and our examination of the enemy, we recommend the following elements for

a counter terrorism strategy. The strategy must be balanced. It must integrate all the elements of national power, diplomacy, intelligence, covert action, law enforcement, economic policy, foreign aid, homeland defense, and military strength. There is no silver bullet or decisive blow that can defeat Islamic terrorism. It will take unity of effort and sustained an effective use of every tool

at our disposal. We need to play offense to kill or to capture the terrorists, deny them sanctuaries, and disrupt their ability to move money and people around the globe. We need to ensure that the key countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are stable, capable, and resolute in opposing terrorism. We need to sustain a coalition of nations that cooperates bilaterally and multilaterally with US in the counter terrorism mission. We need a better dialogue between the

West and the Islamic world. We also highlight the need to restrict and roll back the proliferation of the world's most dangerous weapons. We need to put forth an agenda of opportunity, economic, educational, political, so that young people in the Arab and Islamic world have peaceful and productive avenues for expression and hope. We need to join the battle of ideas within the Islamic world, communicating hope instead of despair,

progress in place of persecution, life instead of death. This message should be matched by policies that encourage and support the majority of Muslims who share these goals. At home, we need to set clear priorities for the protection of our infrastructure and the security of our transportation resources. Should be allocated based upon those priorities, and standards of preparedness should be set. The private sector and local governments should

play an important part in this process. We need secure borders with heightened and uniform standards of identification for those entering and exiting the country, and an immigration system able to be efficient allowing good people in while keeping the terrorists out. If God forbid there is another attack, we must be ready to respond. We must educate the public, train and equip our first responders, and anticipate countless scenarios.

We recommend significant changes in the organization of government. We know that the quality of the people is more important than the quality of the wiring diagrams. Good people can overcome bad structures. They should not have to day and night. Dedicated public servants are waging the struggle to combat terrorists and protect the homeland. We need to ensure that our government maximizes their efforts through information sharing, coordinated effort, and

clear authority. A critical theme that emerged throughout our inquiry was the difficulty of answering the question who is in charge? Who ensures that agencies pool resources, avoid duplication, and plan jointly. Who oversees the massive integration and unity of effort necessary to keep America safe. Too often the answer is no one. Thus we are recommending a National counter Terrorism Center. We

need effective unity of effort on counter terrorism. We should create a National counter Terrorism Center to unify all counter terrorism intelligence and operations across the foreign and the domestic divide in one organization. Right now, these efforts are too diffuse across the government. They need to be unified. We recommend a National Intelligence Director. We need unity of effort

in the intelligence community. We need a much stronger head of the intelligence community and an intelligence community that organizes itself to do joint work in national mission centers. We need reforms of the kind the military had two decades ago. We need a Goldwater Nichols reform for the intelligence community. The intelligence community needs a shift in mindset and organization so that intelligence agencies operate under the principle of joint

command with information sharing as the norm. We need to reform in the United States Congress. We need unity of effort in the Congress. Right now, authority and responsibility are too diffuse. The Intelligence Committees do not have enough power to perform effectively their oversight work oversight for homeland security

is splintered among too many committees. We need much stronger committees performing oversight of intelligence, and we need a single committee in each chamber providing oversight of the Department of Homeland Security. We need reform in the FBI. We need us stronger national security workforce within the FBI. We do not support the creation of a new domestic intelligence agency.

What the f FBI needs is a specialized and integrated national security workforce consisting of agents, analysts, linguists, and surveillance specialists. These specialists need to be recruited, trained, rewarded, and retained to ensure the development of an institutional culture with deep expertise and intelligence and national security. We need changes in information sharing. We need unity of effort in that task.

United States government has access to vast amounts of information, but it has a weak process, a weak system of processing and using that information. Need to share must replace need to know, and we need a better process for transitions between one administration and another for national security officials so that this nation does not lower its guard every four or eight years. These and other recommendations are spelled

out in great detail in our report. We've made a limited number of recommendations, focusing on the areas we believe most critical. We are acutely sensitive to the need to vigorously protect our liberties as we secure and guard our security.

We endorse many of the actions taken in the week in the wake of nine eleven to facilitate government action and information shared, but we stress that these measures need to be accompanied by commitment to our open society and the principle of review safeguards that are built into the process and accompanied by vigorous oversight. We must, after all is said and done, preserve the liberties that we are fighting for. It wasn't long after the release of the

report that controversy would seep into the narrative. Critics claimed the report was rife with inaccuracies, lacked factual basis, and claims of conflicts of interest. Some of those claims were actually leveled by members of the commission. Other members of the Commission claimed the recommendations were being ignored, and even went on a nationwide tour to convince people and agencies

to adopt the recommendations. Chairman Kane and Vice Chairman Hamilton's would go on to write a book about their experiences and the frustrations over lack of cooperation from intelligence agencies and misstatements by the f a A and the Pentagon. Both men said the commission was set up to fail. Captain Dale die as a retired Marine, a military consultant and author, and one of the most sought after technical advisors from motion pictures and television. He's also very well

informed and connected. I asked him if there was even a need for the Department of Homeland Security. I don't think so. Um. Look, we're one of one of the other things about Americans, as well as being blamers, Um, we're we're bureaucracy builders. I mean, part part of our I don't know, national character, I guess, is to say, well, you know what we need here the greatest minds in the world. So let's go find them and we'll build some sort of bureaucracy and they'll study the question and

they'll tell us what to do. Um. The problem with that, as is a problem with all bureaucracies, is it's become self perpetuating. And what happens is they grasp for power. Okay, we're the we're the Department of Homeland Security. We will rule your lives. This is the way this is going to go. And that's that's entirely anti American. UM. I didn't see the need for it. I still don't see the need for it, frankly. But it is one of those self perpetuating bureaucracies, and here we go, so we

need I think at this point we don't. We might have needed an increased level of training and security and that sort of thing for the for the normal security people and at airlines and major travel hubs and that sort of thing. I think I think we should have taken a lesson from the Israelites. Frankly, they're very good

at this, UM. And and if it were me, rather than say, okay, let's build a bureaucracy full of eggheads and experts who can study this problem, I would have said, wait a minute, what are you guys doing over there in Israel? You seem to do really well with this sort of thing. And I would have either copied or mimicked that and let it go. But that's not that's not in our American nature. UM. We liked to build stuff and then okay, problem solved, And of course it

never is. It just creates other problems. UM. So UM Homeland Security t s AN I don't think so. We could have done it better. In the last few years, there's been a lot of controversy surrounding our intelligence services, lack of trust, failures in communication, failures to work together. How is our intelligence infrastructure? Do you think? Look, we we needed a central collating an analysis point. We created one. But in the process of doing that, I think we

ignored the old bureaucratic in fighting. Well, I know something you don't know, and that gives me a certain edge, that gives me a certain power. And that's rife, rife throughout the American intelligence community, whether it's civilian intelligence or military intelligen there's something like thirteen fourteen or fifteen separate agencies. I think we finally understood that that the material, the product that is produced out of those intelligence agencies needs

to come under one umbrella. But look, intelligence gathering is a dirty business. Even with all of the electronic gizmos and satellites and surveillance techniques that we have, it's still a dirty business. It's still about secrets. It's still about I know something you don't know, and and because I know that, and now I have access to power and so on, and and that is the sort of thing that that defeats a lot of our our intelligence efforts.

And you know, it's so simple. In many cases, it's a matter of picking up a phone and saying, hey, I got some stuff, what do you got? But we don't want to do that because that's giving away. Um. We're so clandestinely oriented about this sort of thing that in many cases we defeat ourselves. The information that we've gathered through extraordinary effort never gets shared because we're afraid of it being compromised. Well, look, a little compromise is

better than no information at all. Are we safer today than we were twenty years ago? You know, I was afraid you were going to ask me that, Steve. And I don't know the answer, my friend, I really don't. Um, I think so, UM, I hope so. I hope we've learned some things through this agony that we've been over in uh in, in this century. I really do. UM. I think it's important for us to understand that America

is vulnerable and can be vulnerable. And the more we screw up internationally, the more we allow China to do what China is trying to do become the world power that the United States once was. The more we do that, UM, I'm afraid our safety, which has improved certainly since nine eleven, the safety of the individual on the street, living in l A or living in kia Kuk or wherever it is. I think I think they are indeed safer right now.

But if we continue to chase these sort of overseas involvements, Uh, we're gonna sack pfies a great deal of that safety. We're inviting higher, we're inviting spite. And the more we do that, the more the people who are threatening our safety are going to attempt to get to us. Look, it's a great coup to be able to kick the great Satan in the butt. America is a powerful country, and anybody who can take a shot and that shot lands, that's a great deal of prestige for those people. Um,

and we are vulnerable. But I think in direct answer, we're a bit safer for mr and mrs on the street than we were before nine eleven. Once again, Thomas Caine, the chairman of the nine eleven Commission, his final words on the day the Commission's report was released. We have struck blows against the terrorists nine eleven. We have we believe, prevented attacks on the homeland. We do believe we are safer today than we were in nine eleven, but we

are not safe. Thank you all. We do believe that in this volume, our recommendations will make the American table safe. So maybe the answer isn't with government officials, experts and politicians. Maybe the answer hits a little closer to home. Do you feel safer today than yesterday, than twenty years ago?

I'm Steve Gregory in Los Angeles, nine eleven, Two decades Later is produced by Steve Gregory and Jacob Gonzalez and is a production of the k FI News department for I Heart Media Los Angeles and the iHeart podcast Network. The views expressed are strictly those of the guests and not necessarily the hosts or employees of I Heart Media.