9/11 and Terrorist Travel: A Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

Before nineteen hijackers could commit the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, they passed through U.S. border security sixty-eight times. In all, they had twenty-five contacts with consular officers and forty-three contacts with immigration and customs authorities-none of whom suspected they were al Qaeda operatives. In the words of the 9/11 Commission's Executive Director, this staff report "offered substantial information or analysis that was not well represented in the Commission's report." The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States was established by law in November 2002. Congress and President George W. Bush gave this independent, bipartisan Commission the mandate to study, evaluate, and report on "immigration, nonimmigrant visas and border security" as these areas relate to 9/11. Book jacket.