The Commission states that it found no evidence that U.S. officials had advance knowledge of the September 11 attacks. It also says that, for the first hijacked plane, NEADS received notice nine minutes before it struck the North Tower, and that there was no advance notice for the second, third, or fourth hijackings.

The 9/11 Commission’s final report states that it found no evidence that the U.S. government had foreknowledge of the attacks in the sense of prior, specific knowledge of the time and place of the plot. The report instead emphasizes that the plotters were flexible and resourceful and that no single measure adopted by the U.S. government from 1998 to 2001 disturbed or even delayed the progress of the al Qaeda plot.

This report represents the unanimous conclusion of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. The Commission says that none of the measures adopted by the U.S. government before 9/11 disturbed or even delayed the progress of the al Qaeda plot.

The report says: 'During the spring and summer of 2001, U.S. intelligence agencies received a stream of warnings about an attack al Qaeda planned, as one report put it, “something very, very, very big.”' It also states that 'the system was blinking red.'

In the official online version of the 9/11 Commission Report, the Commission’s general findings state: "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 confidence is that none of the measures adopted by the U.S. government from 1998 to 2001 disturbed or even delayed the progress of the al Qaeda plot." This language frames the problem as a failure of prevention and disruption, rather than as a situation where the U.S. government possessed clear foreknowledge and chose not to act.[7]

Finding: While the Intelligence Community had amassed a great deal of valuable intelligence regarding Usama Bin Ladin and his terrorist activities, none of it identified the time, place, and specific nature of the attacks that were planned for September 11, 2001. Nonetheless, the Community did have information that was clearly relevant to the September 11 attacks, particularly when considered for its collective significance.

An official government description of the report explains that the Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States "provides a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks." It further notes that the report includes recommendations to guard against future attacks. The description frames the report as an investigation into preparedness and response, not as a finding of deliberate foreknowledge or complicity.[6]

The executive summary presents the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission’s investigation into the events of September 11, 2001. It is the official summary of the Commission’s final report.

A congressional event summary quoting the report says: 'There is no evidence that any person with advanced knowledge of the impending terrorist attacks used that information to profit by trading securities.' This is a direct statement from the Commission-era findings about advanced knowledge.

The attacks of 9/11 were unexpected and unprecedented. Its security apparatus, including the intelligence community, had not adjusted institutionally to be able to anticipate and pre-empt what the report labels as "the new terrorism".

Philip Zelikow, the Commission's executive director, said there were 'strategic warnings' about al Qaeda long before 9/11, but that it was difficult to mount a major policy effort to prevent a large-scale attack. This distinguishes broad warning from specific foreknowledge of the plot.

The 9/11 Commission Report is the conclusion of the bipartisan inquiry into the facts and circumstances surrounding the attacks. It says the CIA, the Defense Department, and the White House all knew a great deal about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda in the years preceding the attacks, but that the attacks were not the result of an intelligence failure in the sense of prior operational foreknowledge of the specific plot.

A historical overview of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Issues Related to the 9/11 Terrorist Attack explains that the inquiry found that, although "significant intelligence about Usama Bin Laden had been collected," "none of it identified the time, place, and specific nature of the attacks that were planned for September 11, 2001." The report further found that while intelligence agencies had information that terrorists might use airplanes as weapons and that some hijackers were in the United States, they "failed to appreciate the threat" and did not detain the hijackers or add them to a watchlist. This Congressional inquiry’s findings align with the 9/11 Commission’s portrayal of failures and missed signals rather than conclusive foreknowledge.[12]

The article states that there were 'strategic level warnings that preceded the crisis' but 'a lack of specific intelligence on the actual threat as it developed until it was too late.' It adds that warnings existed about al Qaeda, but 'none of these warnings actually referred to the plot that became the 9/11 attacks.'

A CNN background piece on the September 11 Commission summarizes its conclusions, stating that the report "determined that a 'failure of imagination' prevented U.S. officials from recognizing the al Qaeda threat prior to the assaults on New York and Washington, D.C." It notes that the report described the attacks as unexpected and that the commission proposed reforms for U.S. security agencies. The article underscores the Commission’s view that officials did not adequately anticipate the attacks, reinforcing the absence in the report of any finding that the U.S. government had clear foreknowledge of the specific 9/11 plot.[4]

This review summarizes the 9/11 Commission’s account of the period before the attacks and says the events preceded by the attacks show the convergence of intelligence reports, a long history of threats from Bin Laden, and many alerts and warnings. It does not present evidence that the U.S. government had prior specific foreknowledge of the attacks.

The Commission's report says that during the spring and summer of 2001, U.S. intelligence agencies received a stream of warnings about an attack al-Qaeda planned, including a description from Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet that 'the system was blinking red.'

The commission was chartered to prepare a complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks. Contemporary coverage said the report cast doubt on claims used to justify expanded surveillance powers after the attacks.

A later scholarly treatment states that the 9/11 Commission wrote that the methods for detecting and warning of surprise attack "did not fail; instead, they were not really tried," attributing the failure to gaps in intelligence collection rather than prior foreknowledge of the plot.

The report is comprehensive and its key points are that the attacks of 9/11 were unexpected and unprecedented, and that the security apparatus had not adjusted institutionally to be able to anticipate and pre-empt what the report labels 'the new terrorism.'

A summary from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on implementing 9/11 Commission recommendations notes that the 9/11 Commission Report, released in July 2004, was intended "to assess the circumstances surrounding 9/11 and to identify ways to guard against future terrorist attacks." The document focuses on how DHS reforms align with the Commission’s recommendations about improving security and intelligence, indicating that the report’s primary thrust was on institutional failures and future prevention, not on findings of deliberate foreknowledge of the attacks by U.S. officials.[9]

The article summarizes that the CIA had warnings that al-Qaeda might attack the United States, including possible hijackings, and that Condoleezza Rice said the July 2001 briefing was not prompted by any specific threat information and did not raise the possibility that terrorists might use airplanes as missiles.

This article summarizes the 9/11 Commission report as identifying intelligence failures before the attacks and not as finding that the U.S. government had prior knowledge of the exact attacks. It describes the report as a detailed account of the events leading up to September 11, 2001.