Governments Role in the 9/11 Attack
September 11th, 2001
September 11th, 2001, will go down in the history of the United States as the day that the unthinkable happened. The American people will forever remember this day for the violence unleashed on innocent civilians. Indeed, September 11th, 2001 is one of the darkest days in American history.
On this day, someone, or rather a group of people, gained access to the seemingly impregnable American defenses and effectively used two American airplanes to unleash unfathomed terror on innocent civilians, through crashing the planes on federal buildings. As a result, these ‘terrorists’ succeeded in striking America at the core, leaving citizens living in abject fear(Clapper 2018).
Nobody thought that the most powerful country, wielding all levels of sophisticated intelligence and military machinery could be attacked, and without any warning. The fact that 9/11 happened raises many questions, all of which are left unanswered, because of the sheer incompetent dealings of the different government agencies.
Intelligence
The world changed forever on the very morning of September 11th, 2001, 19 Muslim terrorists launched a coordinated attack to hijack four commercial airliners in the United States and succeeded. The most powerful military had fallen prey to 19 Muslims armed with box cutters. As at then, America’s air defenses being finely tuned to stop an attack from outside while ignoring the fact that America was vulnerable from an attack within its borders. This was the first mistake that the American government made.
The price of this ignorance saw the four hijacked aircraft intentionally crashed into targets on the ground. Three of the four airplanes hit their targets, two planes hit the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center located in New York City and vaporized everyone onboard and caused the building to go on fire leading to its collapse. More than 3000 people lost their lives and thousands were injured. The third plane flew into the Pentagon, the very core of the United States Military killing 125 people. The fourth plane was steered off its course by courageous passengers forcing the plane to crash into a cornfield in Pennsylvania.
The sad reality is that an investigation into the surrounding circumstances and events that occurred before 9/11 prove that it could have been stopped. It is even sadder to know that Bush had intelligence that there was such an attack.
Bush and his administration knew about the planned attack; the procedural failures on the fatal date seem to be too convenient pointing to the fact that there was complicity from the highest levels of government(Hayes 2016). While this allegation may seem too far-fetched, this was not the first time that Americans had fallen victim to terrorists; on October 11th 2001, USS Cole, a United States Ship located near Yemen, was detonated while fueling Killing 17 soldiers. This occurred despite the existence of military intelligence of Al Qaeda’s presence in the area. Again the commander of the USS Cole was not informed. The failure to relay intelligence between the CIA and the FBI is a result of the failure of leadership and the power plays between intelligence officers in the intelligence field and the policy makers in Washington.
An agency report prepared by the Central intelligence agency’s inspector general holds that about 50 to 60 C.I.A officers were privy to intelligence reports in 2000 that two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hamzi and Khalid al- Mihdar were in the United States. However, despite having this knowledge, none of the officers took reasonable steps to notify the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the threat that the two individuals.
Failure of the Federal Aviation Administration
The reluctance by the Federal Aviation Administration to heed to intelligence warnings advising the body to fix airport security holes was a major contributor to the fruition of the 9/11 attacks; There exists evidence that points to top FAA officials in Washington being warned of security failures that could facilitate a security breach at Boston Logan airport before 9/11 occurred (Griffin 2017). No action was taken to fix these problems. As a result, Hijackers passed through two Logan Checkpoints on 9/11, gained command of two airplanes and crashed them into New York World Trade Center.
Further, testimony by an American Airlines employee Stephen Wallace indicates that on May 11, 2001, two of the terrorists were seen photographing and videotaping a checkpoint at the airport. The attackers also recorded flight display monitors while talking loudly on a cell phone. Again no action was taken, despite the action qualifying to be considered a serious breach warranting an investigation.
American Airlines Flight 587
The date 12th November 2001 will forever be remembered as one of the darkest days in the American Aviation industry. It is on this day that the ill-fated American Airplane Flight 587(Airbus A300B4-605R), an International passenger flight regularly scheduled to ferry passengers from John F. Kennedy International to the Dominican Republic, crashed shortly after take off. The ill-fated Airbus A300B4-605R crashed into the Belle Harbor in Queens New York. Sadly all of the 260 people aboard the plane lost their lives(Schwach, 2018).
The crash came at a time when the country was healing from the losses of the 9/11 attacks. Due to the proximate nature of the crash to 9/11, the crash raised panic across the country with citizens fearing the worst scenario of the crash being another terrorist attack. However, these concerns were ruled out by an investigation led by the National Transportation Board that cited human error as the cause of the crash. The results of the investigation indicated that the crash was as a result of the first officer’s overuse of the ruder controls in a bid to respond to wake turbulence. This caused the vertical stabilizer to snap off the plane together with two engines and sealed the fate of the passenger onboard.
Conclusion
Access to declassified testimony on events and circumstances that took place before 9/11 is enough to convince the citizens of the United States that the 9/11 attacks could have been stopped. The systematic institutional failure and negligence by holders of office at the highest levels of government are too convenient to be true. 17 years later, Americans are yet to understand what truly happened on the day that the all mighty American intelligence fell to 19 terrorists.
The crush of the Airbus A300B4-605R that came shortly after 9/11 is further proof of institutionalized negligence that led to the loss of life of innocent civilians. Indeed the Bush administration failed terribly in securing the border and in demanding competence and respect from its officers.
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