This is a brilliant book, impeccably documented, that sees the executive branch of the American goverment through a prism of skepticism and alarm, bolstered by heavily footnoted sources.

Dale raises vital unanswered questions about the emergence of the secret state within a state in the United States, while avoiding the pitfall of descending into adamant conspiracy theories.

Yet, Dale gets to the heart of the underlying conspiracy at the heart of what is basically the Cheney Administration, a parallel secret government run by those who believe that they must make decisions on behalf of the rabble of democracy, because democracy cannot be trusted and is too cumbersome.

The challenge with many conspiracy theories is that they try to answer all the questions with "confirmed facts," when in fact that is a impossible task because the nature of a secret shadow government is to hide the facts. We can speculate about what we don't know, but we are left, for the most part, only seeing the shadow in Plato's cave.

Peter Scott Dale understands that it is first necessary to understand the historical underpinnings of an unaccountable executive branch, and that its very existence, in violation of our checks and balances, could lead to almost any conspiracy theory being possible, but that the very nature of clandestine activity leaves us begging for answers.

In short, Dale connects the documented facts and unanswered questions into a damning indictment of a United States where a secretive authoritarian head has lost any connection to its democracy-based body.

The logical result of this historical trend was the event known as 9/11, and the implications that Rumsfeld and Cheney used it to achieve covert goals that they had been hatching back during their White House years in the '70s.

Dale pretty much represents the BuzzFlash perspective on 9/11 when he notes: "When asked for my opinon of what happened on 9/11, I customarily answer that I am sure of one thing only: that there has been a significant cover-up of vital issues."

This is an important, provocative book that understands the dangers "The Road to 9/11" poses to our democracy by exposing the threat from within our own nation of an institutionalized shadow government that has been amassing powers for years.

Cheney and Rumsfeld (with Bush as their beard) just brought up to steroid levels.

The University of California press has done us a great service by going ahead, having it peer reviewed and fact checked, and then publishing it.

From an online reviewer:

Peter Dale Scott's long-in-the-works THE ROAD TO 9/11 is outstanding, powerful, sad, in a way, and quietly gripping. (It's also notable for the fact that the University of California Press only reportedly published it after they'd spent the better part of a year scrupulously fact checking and cautiously vetting it for accuracy). Glib summaries aren't likely to do it justice. There have been several books published so far that address the official story offered about 9/11 with a critical eye, all of which basically allege that the White House and US intelligence agencies have covered up their own, complicated roles in the terror attacks of 2001. Scott's new book makes some reference to and generally builds upon a number of those works, but simultaneously encompasses a far broader sweep, wields (conversely) a simpler, more direct argument, and provides a new level of hard-to-argue-with credibility to the process of naming specific names....

Scott's powerful, involving analysis of US covert policy and its relationship to the events of 9/11 is a tour-de-force. I'll also note that, though the book is heavily footnoted and carries a lengthy bibliography, I found it to be more readable and emotionally engaging than some of his earlier works. (There are some thoughtful and appropriate personal touches). It's worth finally mentioning that Scott cleverly begins each new section of the book with highly appropriate quotes pertaining to the chapter that follows. After reading this book, and thinking quietly for a while about the detailed, disquieting picture it reveals, the most resonant to me was the all-too-relevant comment from onetime US intelligence-linked al Qaeda trainer Ali Mohamed: "Americans see what they want to see, and hear what they want to hear."