Jet fuel from the Boeing caused a devastating inferno that led to the structural collapse of a portion of the giant concrete building, which is the headquarters of the U. Department of Defense. All told, military personnel and civilians were killed in the Pentagon, along with all 64 people aboard the airliner.
Less than 15 minutes after the terrorists struck the nerve center of the U. The structural steel of the skyscraper, built to withstand winds in excess of miles per hour and a large conventional fire, could not withstand the tremendous heat generated by the burning jet fuel. At a. Only six people in the World Trade Center towers at the time of their collapse survived. Almost 10, others were treated for injuries, many severe. Because the plane had been delayed in taking off, passengers on board learned of events in New York and Washington via cell phone and Airfone calls to the ground.
Knowing that the aircraft was not returning to an airport as the hijackers claimed, a group of passengers and flight attendants planned an insurrection.
One of the passengers, Thomas Burnett, Jr. I love you, honey. Sandy Bradshaw, a flight attendant, called her husband and explained that she had slipped into a galley and was filling pitchers with boiling water. The passengers fought the four hijackers and are suspected to have attacked the cockpit with a fire extinguisher.
The plane then flipped over and sped toward the ground at upwards of miles per hour, crashing in a rural field near Shanksville in western Pennsylvania at a. All 44 people aboard were killed. Its intended target is not known, but theories include the White House , the U.
Capitol, the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland or one of several nuclear power plants along the eastern seaboard. Citizens of 78 countries died in New York, Washington, D. At the World Trade Center, 2, died after the two planes slammed into the twin towers. That figure includes firefighters and paramedics, 23 New York City police officers and 37 Port Authority police officers who were struggling to complete an evacuation of the buildings and save the office workers trapped on higher floors.
At the Pentagon, people were killed, including 64 on American Airlines Flight 77, the airliner that struck the building. On Flight 93 , 44 people died when the plane crash-landed in Pennsylvania.
Bush , who was in Florida at the time of the attacks and had spent the day being shuttled around the country because of security concerns, returned to the White House.
These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. In a reference to the eventual U. Within two months, U. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11th attacks, remained at large until May 2, , when he was finally tracked down and killed by U. In June , then-President Barack Obama announced the beginning of large-scale troop withdrawals from Afghanistan; it took until August for all U. It was signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 25, Today, the Department of Homeland Security is a cabinet responsible for preventing terror attacks, border security, immigrations and customs and disaster relief and prevention.
Mohammed led propaganda operations for al Qaeda from In August , a U. On the first day of trading after the attacks, the market fell 7. The heaviest losses were in finance and air transportation, which accounted for 60 percent of lost jobs. Thousands of first responders and people working and living in lower Manhattan near Ground Zero were exposed to toxic fumes and particles emanating from the towers as they burned and fell. The Victim Compensation Fund was set to stop accepting claims in December The first memorials to September 11 came in the immediate wake of the attacks, with candlelight vigils and flower tributes at U.
For the first anniversary of the attacks in New York City in , two bright columns of light were shot up into the sky from where the Twin Towers once stood. On clear nights, the beams are visible from over 60 miles away. At the defence department, a faction most identified with assistant secretary Paul Wolfowitz has been pressing for an assault on Iraq and - while he is about it - the forces of Hezbollah.
For Colin Powell, whose own reputation as a man of infinite moderation is extremely dear to him, the business of coalition-building in the Arab world is of much greater importance. And, judging from the way things are going, he must have the support of Dick Cheney in order to be prevailing.
I ran into one of the leading hawks at a television studio this week; he wasn't even trying to look happy. Of course, Powell was opposed even to moving some carriers into the Gulf on the warning of an invasion of Kuwait something his enemies never fail to bring up.
And the idea of having Muslim allies is so crucial to the self-esteem of the Bushies that they would rather handle the Pakistanis and Saudis with tongs than run the risk of offending yesterday's and probably today's patrons of the Taliban. I had to confess my worries to another administration person the other night. It makes me nervous I am keeping a list of things that don't make me feel any safer.
Congressman Gary Condit, whose public woes more or less came to an end on September 11, was, at that point, in danger of losing his seat on the house intelligence committee. He is now a key member of the new special house committee on counter-terrorism. As they say, only in America. Meanwhile, I was asked to produce a photo-identification when buying a ticket for a train to New York. It seemed odd that they would want my picture when I had gone to all the trouble of turning up in person, but once I had produced it I was allowed to carry my unsearched bags straight on to the express.
And in the friendly skies, a friend, who flew business class, was given a plastic knife and a steel fork with his in-flight food. The new rules only specify no knives. Presumably the next generation of hijackers will employ forks, or perhaps tridents, and be allowed to carry them on. We're not all stupid I am beginning to get irritated by the public-service announcements recorded by various pop-culture icons which implore me not to go out and burn my neighbourhood mosque or lynch my local Sudanese grocer.
Neither I, nor anyone I know, was planning any such thing, and the fact is that most Americans understand perfectly well what not to do without being told. The shameful attacks on random Sikhs and other ethnic-minority citizens were very few, and took place as such things normally do far from the scene of the crimes. The public doesn't expect praise for refraining from pogroms, but nor does it expect ceaseless injunctions to abstain from them.
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