If You Don't Have Time to Read It ...

At 567 pages, The 9/11 Commission Report rocketed to the top of Amazon.com's best-seller list last week because it was big news. But it deserves to be there. The commission has produced one of the most riveting, disturbing and revealing accounts of crime, espionage and the inner workings of government ever written.

Even for obsessive historians who have vacuumed up every available fact and theory about 9/11, the report provides a trove of rich new details. The commission scoured 2.5 million documents, many of them classified, and interviewed more than 1,200 people, including Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The result is the most comprehensive history of 9/11 to date.

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The narrative of what happened that day and in the months and years leading up to it will enthrall readers. In places, it all unfurls like an episode of CSI, with chapter titles like "We Have Some Planes" and "Heroism and Horror." Osama bin Laden is portrayed as a micromanager who wanted to hit the White House and personally chose all of the "muscle" hijackers. There are telling details about the lives and passions of the hijackers. For example, the 9/11 scheme nearly foundered several times over the terrorists' personal tribulations. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the plot's mastermind, became enraged when one hijacker-in-waiting flew home to Yemen after the birth of a child. Mohammed wanted him dropped from the operation, but bin Laden refused. When the wayward Nawaq Alhazmi grew lonely waiting for orders in San Diego, Mohammed allowed him to search for a wife on the Internet. Another hijacker, Ziad Samir Jarrah, left the U.S. as many as five times to visit his girlfriend in Germany in the year before 9/11. He even sent her a last love letter, the only hijacker known to have written a farewell.

New details emerge about the scene on board United Flight 93, which crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pa. The report concludes that those who rushed the cockpit never made it inside but did prevent the plane from reaching its target — either the Capitol or the White House. With passengers on the verge of breaking in, Jarrah, the pilot, asked another hijacker, "Is that it? Should we put it down?" The answer was yes, and moments later the plane plowed into the ground.

The chapters on how the government tracked and dealt with the threat from al-Qaeda before 9/11 fascinate and dispirit. Ten missed opportunities are identified — four during the Clinton era, six in Bush's first eight months — and each leaves the reader wondering, What if? Late in his presidency, Clinton mused out loud in a meeting that "it would scare the s___ out of al-Qaeda if suddenly a bunch of black ninjas rappelled out of helicopters into the middle of their camp." But Clinton's enthusiasm rarely translated into action. In early August 2001, Bush received his now famous CIA briefing that bin Laden wanted to attack inside the U.S., but didn't appear alarmed.

The authors of Washington best sellers often have partisan axes to grind. But all 10 members of the 9/11 commission (five Republicans, five Democrats) signed off on every word of this book. That's one more reason it is a rare and valuable read.