Chapter 4 assessed the impact of all three U.S. commissions on terrorism set up during the 1980s. This chapter picks up the story of U.S. counterterrorism policy in the following decade, when Al Qaeda replaced Libya, Iran, and Hezbollah as the preeminent terrorist threat to the United States. I focus on the period after Al Qaeda successfully perpetrated its first major attack: the nearly simultaneous bombings in 1998 of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which claimed 224 lives.

The chapter centers on two commissions: the National Commission on Terrorism (the Bremer Commission), and the Accountability Review Boards on the Embassy Bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam on August 7, 1998 (the Crowe Panel). Comparing these commissions is particularly instructive because they were both formed shortly after the African embassy bombings – making their political context similar – but they differed in their sources of authority and scope. Whereas the Crowe Panel was an executive-branch commission with a narrow mandate, the Bremer Commission was a congressional commission with a broad mandate. My argument about commission influence implies that the Crowe Panel should have prompted more reform than the Bremer Commission, because executive-branch authorization and a narrow scope tend to make it easier for a commission to reach consensus, report quickly, and promote its proposals effectively. The case studies show that this was the case.