9/11

Missed evidence, ignored clues, political considerations--investigative journalist Philip Shenon examines the shortcomings of the 9/11 Commission.

Culture critic Susan Faludi writes about the gender wars in America; her books Backlash and Stiffed, in particular, have sparked admiration and controversy.

Faludi's latest book, The Terror Dream, is already generating much the same critical reaction. It's an investigation of America's response to Sept. 11, 2001, in terms of the myths and stories our society — in particular, the media — grasped hold of for reassurance after that day's terrorist attacks.

Ever since word got out that Don DeLillo was working on a novel about Sept. 11, anticipation has been building. After all, DeLillo has claimed plots and conspiracies as his literary subject. Book critic Maureen Corrigan has a review of DeLillo's new novel, Falling Man.

Mike Binder has directed nine feature films, although before his last, The Upside of Anger, he was best known as an actor and for the television series The Mind of the Married Man.

In Reign Over Me, he gives a serious — an extremely serious — part to the comic Adam Sandler, who plays a man whose life is destroyed by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

British journalist Stephen Grey writes about security issues and Iraq. His work appears in The Sunday Times of London, The New York Times, the Guardian, and The Atlantic Monthly. He says that dozens of terror suspects are still being held in secret prisons and interrogated by the CIA despite President Bush's declaration that the CIA is no longer doing so. Grey's new book is Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program (St. Martin's Press).

The chairman of the Sept. 11 Commission, Tom Kean, and vice-chair Lee Hamilton have written the new book, Without Precedent: the Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission. The two write about the challenges of completing their work on the commission with little money, a tight timeline, constant wrangling to gain access to classified documents, and the necessity of forging a consensus among Republican and Democratic commissioners.

Journalist Lawrence Wright is the author of the new book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. The book is based on more than 500 interviews, some with friends and relatives of Osama bin Laden and examines the circumstances that led to the formation of his terrorist group.

Oliver Stone's new film World Trade Center, starring Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena, follows two Port Authority policemen trapped in the rubble of the towers. Our critic says the film raises a lot of questions about how we grieve.

Attorney Richard Samp is the chief counsel for the Washington Legal Foundation, an organization that has been urging the U.S. Court of Appeals to dismiss challenges to detentions at Guantanamo. He has said, "Throughout our history, the courts have never allowed nonresident aliens to invoke the Constitution as a basis for challenging their detention by American authorities."

Civil rights lawyer Joseph Margulies' new book is Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power. Margulies has represented several prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, and he believes that current U.S. policy is a legal and ethical disaster. He says that few new prisoners are arriving at Guantanamo, but the population at Bagram prison in Afghanistan is growing rapidly.