The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence announced Thursday it will conduct a bipartisan review of recommendations from the 2004 9/11 Commission Report, with hearings scheduled to begin next month as lawmakers prepare for the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in 2026.
Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) will chair the review, which committee leaders said will examine how federal agencies have implemented the commission’s recommendations and whether the intelligence community is positioned to counter future terrorist threats. The inquiry will also evaluate the record of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, created after the attacks to coordinate intelligence activities.
"It is important that the intelligence community is equipped to counter terrorism over the next 25 years amid a quickly evolving landscape," Stefanik said in a statement announcing the review. Lawmakers set the review on the 24th anniversary of the attacks, underscoring a timetable intended to conclude or make substantial progress before the quarter-century milestone next year.
Committee Chairman Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) said the attacks "fundamentally altered the security posture of the United States and the way we engage in the world," and framed the review as a measure to prevent a repeat of intelligence failures. "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," Crawford said.
Top committee Democrat Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.) welcomed the review as an opportunity to evaluate changes since 2001. "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," Himes said.
Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer (N.J.) will serve as a Democratic co-lead on the examination, according to committee officials. The review is expected to include testimony from current and former intelligence officials, legal and policy experts, and victims' representatives, and will probe areas such as information-sharing, analytic tradecraft and organizational reforms recommended by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
The 9/11 Commission, formally created by Congress in late 2002, issued its final report in 2004 identifying systemic intelligence and homeland security failures and offering more than 40 recommendations aimed at preventing future attacks. Many of those recommendations informed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which established the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to improve interagency coordination.
Committee members said the review will measure progress on those reforms and assess whether further changes are needed given new and evolving threats, including the spread of extremist ideologies online and transnational terrorism. Officials emphasized that threats today differ from those in 2001 but argued the core mission—preventing attacks on U.S. soil—remains unchanged.
The announcement comes amid heightened interest in institutional reforms as lawmakers, intelligence officials and veterans of the 9/11 era prepare public remembrances and policy discussions ahead of the 25th anniversary. The committee did not release a detailed witness list or a schedule for the hearings on Thursday; lawmakers said those specifics would be unveiled in the coming weeks.
The bipartisan review adds to a series of congressional oversight efforts that periodically revisit major post-9/11 reforms. Past examinations have produced a mix of praise for improved information-sharing and criticism over persistent stovepipes, analytic shortfalls and challenges in adapting to new technological and geopolitical environments. Committee leaders said Thursday the goal of the new review is to ensure lessons from 2001 remain embedded in policy and practice and to identify additional steps to protect Americans in the decades ahead.