On the 24th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks that stole nearly 3,000 American lives and shattered our sense of invincibility, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence launched a no-nonsense bipartisan probe into the 9/11 Commission’s long-overdue recommendations. With hearings set to fire up next month ahead of the 25th anniversary in 2026, everyday Americans can finally demand answers.
At the helm of this task force stands Rep. Elise Stefanik, the battle-tested New York Republican who’s no stranger to calling out elite failures. As a senior member of the committee and a daughter of the Empire State, Stefanik’s got skin in the game—New York bled more than any other state that day.
“Today, as a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee and a proud New Yorker, I am honored to announce that I will chair the bipartisan House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence review of 9/11 Commission Report to evaluate the progress made on the intelligence-related recommendations,” she stated.
Teaming up with Stefanik is Rep. Josh Gottheimer, the New Jersey Democrat whose district still mourns hundreds of lost heroes from that black Tuesday. Gottheimer’s words hit like a gut punch: “Twenty-four years after 9/11, we are still living with its aftermath — especially in New Jersey, where we lost hundreds of loved ones, friends, and first responders.”
The 9/11 Commission, that blue-ribbon panel of outsiders tasked with exposing how al Qaeda slipped through our porous defenses, dropped its bombshell report back in 2004. It nailed the intelligence breakdowns—silos between agencies, missed warnings, and a system more focused on red tape than real threats. Today’s review will rip open those pages to check if the feds have delivered on fixes like better info-sharing and beefed-up counterterrorism muscle, or if they’ve just papered over the cracks with more spending and less results.
Gottheimer didn’t sugarcoat the raw emotion still boiling in the tri-state area. “The pain of that day has never faded, and neither has our responsibility to honor the victims by preventing future attacks and keeping Americans safe,” he hammered home.
House Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford, the Arkansas Republican who’s steered the committee through tough intel fights, laid it out plain: “The attacks on 9/11 fundamentally altered the security posture of the United States and the way we engage in the world.”
“In the dark days following the devastating attack on U.S. soil, we watched Americans come together in unimaginable ways and we pledged never again to allow a failure of intelligence to compromise our national security,” he said.
Crawford’s verdict is clear: “As we mark the 25th anniversary of one of the darkest days in U.S. history next year, we must ensure our intelligence community and its capabilities remain one step ahead of our rapidly evolving adversaries. While the threats look different today, the mission remains the same: we can never allow a failure to connect the dots to result in catastrophe ever again.”
On the Democratic side, Rep. Jim Himes, Connecticut’s ranking member and a voice for the victims in his home state, is all in. “We are still reckoning with the aftermath of 9/11 — both in Connecticut where so many lost neighbors, friends and family members, and as a nation whose belief in our own security was deeply shaken,” Himes stated.
Himes knows the post-9/11 shake-up reshaped the intel world, but gaps linger. “Twenty-four years later, we continue to honor the victims by doing all in our power to prevent future attacks and keep Americans safe,” he affirmed. “In the years following the attacks, the Intelligence Community underwent substantial reorganization. I look forward to a rigorous bipartisan review of the intelligence community’s progress since 2001, and the opportunity to identify additional areas for improvement.”
Gottheimer doubled down on the unfinished business, admitting some wins but calling out the slackers. “In the years since, following the 9/11 report, we have made critical improvements to our intelligence and homeland security systems. But, our work remains unfinished,” he noted. “I will continue working across the aisle to ensure that we remember the lives lost, support the families of victims, and strengthen our nation’s defenses against terrorism.”
Stefanik drove the point home on future-proofing U.S. defenses. “It is important that the intelligence community is equipped to counter terrorism over the next 25 years amid a quickly evolving landscape,” she insisted.
What makes this push timely is the raw power of the anniversary. As Stefanik’s office put it, the 25th milestone next year demands we “evaluate the progress made on the intelligence-related recommendations made by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States in The 9/11 Commission Report, released in July 2004, and identify possible gaps or areas of improvement.”
Stay tuned to the Fairview Gazette.
