I initially thought this book might be another conspiracy theory book, but that wasn't the message. Instead, Farmer points out that many of the specific details released by various government agencies and / or military don't always parallel the documented facts. And he presents the timeline in extreme detail to back-up his findings. I don't classify this as a government cover-up as much as the natural tendency of a government buracracy to spin the facts as much as possible to present their agency in the best possible light. There also may have been some inital reluctance on the part of leadership to admit to shortfalls for fear of encouraging copy-cat attacks if weaknesses are documented. But Farmer makes his points, and also makes a case for much needed government and buracratic reforms. I believe Farmer is / was a Republican, which may explain to some extent why he was quite gentle on the Bush Administration, given the errors and inadequacies he uncovers. He also took on the task of documenting government and military misstatements without making this a partisian political attack on the Bush Administration. ( )

Odd title, odd thesis, odd editing, odd book. A considerable amount of the middle portion of the book comprises page upon page of transcripts of NEADS/NORAD talking to FAA. It could have been severely edited with author explanation, instead. The excerpts about alleged slow emergency response (how does one mobilize a Country for war within 45 minutes?) and leadership taking all kinds of credit when they hadn't even been informed -- are fascinating. Analogy to Katrina are provided as well.

It's 80% 9/11 and 20% Katrina. The mish-mash, the thesis, works. Stay with it. The highest leaders will spin and lie on matters of important national safety as well as on events that are relatively well documented and easy to investigate. ( )

Well researched. I'd like to think the instances of inaccurate and misleading reports are a Bush/Cheney thing, but I'm pretty sure they're just a US Govt thing. ( )

The Ground Truth begins with the Clinton administration's response to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. It relates the abortive attempts to assassinate Osama Bin Laden with cruise missiles, criticizing both the missile launch that failed and those that were not sent. Farmer's take on both the Clinton and Bush administrations is that people high up in the administration believed that they were in control of America's security when in fact they were out of touch and unable to act decisively when action needed to be taken.

The center of the book is a detailed reconstruction of the events of September 11th 2001, showing the actions of the FAA, NORAD, DOD and the White House minute by minute based on written logs and voice recordings collected by the 9/11 Commission. Farmer's timeline shows that the only effective measures were taken by low level commanders and the passengers on United flight 93.

Farmer is particularly critical of the FAA, the Department of Defense and the Bush White House, not for their failure to anticipate or to deal adequately with the attacks on 911, but for their handling of the aftermath. In each case, according to Farmer, officials attempted to "spin" the story of 9/11 in order to make their agencies, and themselves, look good. These efforts at public relations interfered with the analysis of the events and confused the effort to improve our ability to respond to emergencies.


The Ground Truth then examines hurricane Katrina. Farmer contends that the mistakes of 911, gone uncorrected, occurred all over again in the response to Katrina. Even the newly formed Department of Homeland Security, which was supposed to be able to coordinate emergency response, was clueless and ineffective as Katrina swept across the Gulf of Mexico and drowned New Orleans and much of the Gulf coast. Again the most effective action was that of "spinning" the events, officials causing more delay in the delivery of needed help and supplies while preening before the TV cameras.

Farmer's story ends with the Bush administration. Whether our ability to deal with the many challenges facing us has improved is still unknown.

More reviews a http://residentreader.blogspot.com