BOOK: 'The Commission'

"Missed evidence, ignored clues, political considerations—did the 9/11 Commission really issue the definitive report on the September 2001 terror attacks?", asks National Public Radio's Fresh Air from WHYY.

"In his new book, 'The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation,' New York Times investigative journalist Philip Shenon scrutinizes those charged with analyzing the terror attacks and uncovers new information about the commission's complicated relationship with the Bush White House."

"According to the book," writes the Telegraph, "Philip Zelikow, the 9/11 Commission's executive director, allegedly attempted to intimidate staff to avoid findings that would be damaging to President George W Bush, who was running for re-election, and Condoleezza Rice, his then National Security Adviser.

"When Bob Kerrey, a Democrat member of the commission, learned the extent of Mr Zelikow's ties to the administration, he confronted Tom Kean, its Republican chairman.

"Mr Kerrey reportedly threatened to resign unless Mr Zelikow was sacked, but was persuaded to stay."

Sen. Max Cleland, resigned from the commission in November 2003 saying, "Bush is scamming America."

"The chair and vice chair of the 9/11 Commission, respectively Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, assert in their book, Without Precedent, that they were "set up to fail" and were starved of funds to do a proper investigation", reported the Guardian.

Shenon says that raw data at the National Security Agency "seemed to suggest that the government of Iran and the militant group Hezbollah, had provided important assistance to some of the hijackers in the year and a half before the attack."

Shenon apparently accepts the major conclusions of "The 9/11 Commission Report"— we do not (see Fatally Flawed: The 9/11 Commission Report).