Source: The Kansas City Star
On August 7, 2004 The Kansas City Star reported, "The 9/11 Commission offered a simplistic view of radical Islam in its recent report because it failed to draw on insights from academic scholars, some of those researchers say. The report, released July 22, contains an analysis of the growth of the militant brand of Islam promoted by Osama bin Laden and his network of terrorists, who led the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The commission devoted 24 pages of its nearly 600-page report to describing what it called 'the foundation of the new terrorism.' 'There are a number of factual errors that could have been avoided easily by having these few short pages reviewed by one of the hundreds of qualified scholars of Islamic studies,' says Brannon Wheeler, associate professor of Islamic studies and comparative religion at the University of Washington. 'It is astounding to me that the commission does not seem to have consulted any of the scholars of contemporary Islamic studies in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world in its attempt to explain Islam, Muslim religious activism or bin Laden'...Efforts to obtain comment from the 9/11 Commission about these complaints have been unsuccessful, though one published report quoted a commission spokesman as saying some scholars were 'privately interviewed'...Carl Ernst, professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, also faults the commission for not focusing 'on issues of international law and criminality.' By focusing instead on terrorism growing out of militant Islam, he says, 'this report unfortunately perpetuates a conflict mentality that may end up unintentionally causing further conflict.'"