Twenty years after the horrific events of 9/11, you might think that everything worth knowing about the terrorist attack has been thoroughly aired. But, as Ray McGinnis shows in UNANSWERED QUESTIONS, there are still quite a few things about that historical event that cry out for further investigation. McGinnis’s book is centered around questions posed by relatives of persons killed in the World Trade Centre to the 9/11 Commission that were either evaded or not answered on the grounds of national security. The questions range from why jets dispatched from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ) weren’t able to intercept the hijacked planes to why then-President George Bush didn’t immediately return to Washington DC once informed of the attack to why Building 7 of the WTC collapsed that evening even though no aircraft hit it.
The book has 24 chapters divided into four sections. Part One gives the background to the Family Steering Committee, the organization set up by relatives to press for a commission of inquiry into the attack. This was necessary, according to McGinnis, because the Bush administration was reluctant to conduct a formal investigation. In fact, it took 14 months to appoint the Commission, which then took four years to release its report—by contrast, the inquiry into the Challenger space shuttle disaster was concluded within four months. The second part sums up statements made by the FSC on the 9/11 Commission, while Part Three lists ten questions that remain unanswered to this day. According to McGinnis, 70 percent of all the FSC’s questions have never been addressed. Several of these questions are so phrased that they implicate government officials and business executives in a plot to not only cover up certain aspects of the attack, but possible involvement in the attack itself. The final part of the book analyzes the official version of events and what was left out of it.
Throughout McGinnis assumes that the FSC members, just by virtue of being relatives of the victims, are somehow immune to the biases that might affect ordinary onlookers when, in fact, the opposite is more likely. He also ignores the dictum, usually attributed to Napoleon, that one should not attribute to malice that which may be explained by incompetence.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS is a well-written and comprehensive history of the 9/11 terrorist attack that raises key issues from the Family Steering Committee (FSC) that have yet to be addressed, as well as highlighting serious government shortcomings made clearer through the COVID-19 pandemic and the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
~Kevin Baldeosingh for IndieReader