9/11 COMMISSION REPORT: This $10, 567-page paperback will be a best seller, writes Conor O'Clery in New York
At 11.30 a.m., publication time for the September 11th commission report, assistants in Border's book store on lower Broadway ripped open boxes and began stacking the 567-page publication on the shelves.
They had more than passing interest in the contents. The attacks on the World Trade Centre destroyed the original Border's bookshop beside the north tower. Several waiting people grabbed copies and retreated to the Dean & Delluca cafe to browse through the contents. It became obvious from dipping into the $10 paperback that it would be a best seller.
It is a rare example where a committee, in this case the 10 politicians and 80 staff members who make up the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the US, has produced a thriller.
Some chapter headings would do justice to a fast-paced novel: The Attack Looms; The System Was Blinking Red, We Have Some Planes. The latter phrase refers to the information given by a hijacker to passengers on American Airlines Flight 11 as it headed for the north tower.
As we went about our business in New York that morning, flight attendant Amy Sweeney was telling a ground staff member by phone: "We are flying low. We are flying very, very low. Oh my God we are way too low!"
At 8.46 a.m. the airliner smashed into the tower and the attacks on America which would kill 2,749 people had begun. As the second plane, United Airlines 175, headed for the south tower another call was made - by passenger Pater Hanson to his father Lee. "It's getting bad, Dad," he said. "I think they intend to... fly into a building. If it happens it will be very fast. My God, my God."
The call also ended abruptly at 9.03 a.m. Thus the story of the hijackings is told in precise, human detail, the knowledge of the individual human dramas even now deepening the sense of shock of those who lived through it all.
We learn some shocking new details from the report. The hijackers set off metal detectors at airports but all got through with their lethal box cutters.
One, Nawaf al Hazmi, set off alarms at the first and second metal detectors and was hand-wanded but still allowed onto the plane at Dulles Airport.
The report confirms some of what cinema-goers got from Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, that for example "the President remained in the classroom for another five to seven minutes while the children continued reading". But it contradicts others, such as his claim that Saudi relatives of Osama bin Laden relatives were flown out of America with Bush's knowledge before the ban on air travel was lifted.
But the heart of the book is the story of the struggle between al-Qaeda and two successive US administrations: that of Bill Clinton and then George W Bush.
The reader learns of the CIA's astonishing failure even to establish for a long time who was behind earlier attacks, such as the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden on October 12th, 2000.
If the book has a hero it is the White House counter-terrorism chief, Mr Richard Clarke, who was obsessed with al-Qaeda and its war against America, and who was a fierce advocate of pre-emptive attack, in Afghanistan, before the phrase became current. A daily brief Mr Clarke prepared for President Clinton on December 4th, 1998 was headed "Subject: Bin Laden Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks".
Clinton and his aides spent time debating how to find and get rid of Bin Laden. Opportunities to bomb him came and went, driving intelligence operatives to despair. Caution was dictated by fear of civilian casualties and the concern that a failed attempt could make things worse.
Even a tip-off about US intentions would mean that "old wiley Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad", as Mr Clarke put it in an email to national security adviser Sandy Berger. Mr Berger is also seen to be on the ball, upbraiding hapless CIA chief George Tenet after the Cole attack so sharply that Mr Tenet walked out of the meeting.
In the dying days of Mr Clinton's term a State Department official asks despairingly of Defence officials, "Does al-Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon to get their attention?"
At the handover in January 2001, Mr Berger strongly warned his successor Condoleezza Rice of the danger, and Mr Clinton told Mr Bush his biggest threat would be Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. For the later champions of pre-emptive strike against Iraq, the new team at the Pentagon were not concerned about retaliation for the Cole.
Mr Donald Rumsfeld "thought too much time had passed and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, thought the Cole attack was 'stale'." Mr Wolfowitz wanted to focus instead on Iraq. Ms Rice told the commission that Mr Bush said early on: "I want to take the fight to the terrorists." But she demoted Mr Clarke to deputy cabinet status and his plan for military response was not discussed by cabinet members until a few days before the attacks.
He never gave up. On June 25th he warned Ms Rice of six reports of imminent attack. On August 6th, 2001 Mr Bush got a daily brief Mr Clarke inspired headed "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US". None of this got to the public. There were no colour-coded terror alerts, no advice about "chatter" on the air waves.
The airport security personnel were not told to watch for terrorists who had been training as pilots. George Bush took a month's holiday in Texas.
The attack was originally planned for May 2001, then July, then September. There were disagreements at the top in al-Qaeda. Some did not want to hit the US directly.
The "muscle" hijackers were helped by Iran to move around the Middle East. They were not tough guys at all. Their average height was five foot, six inches. Some hijackers met at a Texaco garage and gave each other high-fives as they heard the attack was on.
The 19 tickets were bought by September 5th. For a week the hijackers knew precisely what was going to happen and when. No one in Washington did. It was the biggest failure in US intelligence since Pearl Harbour.