2026-09-13 from AI

The people who explicitly said the 9/11 Commission was “set up to fail” were Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the chairman and vice‑chairman of the Commission itself.

This is not speculation — it comes directly from their own book, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission, and from multiple interviews they gave when the book was released.

🔹 What Kean and Hamilton said

• In their book’s opening chapter, titled “Set Up to Fail,” Kean and Hamilton wrote that from the very beginning they felt the Commission “was set up to fail.”
• Thomas Kean reiterated this in an interview, saying the Commission was “set up to fail” because of late establishment, partisan appointment structure, inadequate funding, and a rushed deadline.
• In another interview, Hamilton explained that they faced restricted access to documents, obstruction, false testimony, and severe time and funding constraints, reinforcing their belief that the Commission was set up to fail.

🔹 Why they believed this

Across their statements and writing, Kean and Hamilton pointed to several structural problems:

• 441‑day delay before the Commission was even formed
• Underfunding (initially only $3 million)
• Difficulty obtaining security clearances
• Restricted access to key witnesses and documents
• False or misleading testimony from agencies like NORAD
• Obstruction from the CIA and possibly the White House
• A deadline that was too short to investigate properly

These were not claims made by outside critics — they were made by the leaders of the Commission themselves.