9-11
...ver. The scene at the World Trade Center was the worst of the attacks. The damage at the Pentagon could not compare to the destruction caused by the collapsing of the two immense towers, not to mention the numerous other buildings that were damaged by falling debris. The streets surrounding the buildings were filled with people; some running to escape the scene of terror, others waiting to get in to help. Panic was an understatement. After the first building collapsed, people began looking everywhere for survivors amid the rubble. Flames popped out of an ambulance; taxis slammed into buildings. One man walked around calling out: ‘Is anybody out there? Show me an arm. Show me an arm.’ He got no response. Someone asked a firefighter, ‘Is there anything that I can do?’ ‘There’s nothing anybody can do,’ the firefighter replied. ‘There’s nothing anybody can do.’ Firefighters appeared dumbfounded, standing around with their hands on their hips. Mike Fitzpatrick, 38, said he and seven other firefighters were in the lobby of the first building to collapse when one became trapped. They had begun to cut him out when the second building collapsed. And they couldn’t hear him anymore. Then they had to leave. ‘We stayed because one of our officers was trapped,’ he said. ‘We were trying to dig him out – we were trying to dig him out. He was alive. It collapsed on him. By 11 a.m., hundreds of dazed firefighters were on the scene. Many were on their knees; some were crying, their heads in their hands, sitting on piles of debris. No one raced toward the wreckage, afraid that more would fall (Fitsch). More than five thousand Americans were killed in the attacks; the most catastrophic act of terrorism in the history of the United States. However, America was not the only country to suffer huge losses. “Also killed were men and women from more than fifty other countries, among them Great Britain, which, having lost more than two hundred of its citizens, had experienced the most deadly act of terrorism in its history too (Bergen 25).” Ironically, among the American victims was John O’Neill who probably knew more about bin Laden (believed to be the mastermind of the attacks) than anyone in the U.S. Government. He had led the FBI investigation of the embassy bombings and the attack on the Cole. O’Neill had retired from the Bureau only two weeks before and gone to work as the head of security at the Trade Center. He died trying to rescue people (Bergen 26). Three days after the attack, Justice Department officials disclosed the names of the nineteen men they said were involved. Several of the men who carried out the suicide mission lived in Florida, while the others were said to have lived in California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Arizona (Lewis and Johnston). They may have been living in the United States as early on as 1994, just a few months after Ramzi Yousef’s 1993 attack on the World Trade Center (Bergen35). According to David Johnston, writer for the New York Times, “One of Mr. bin Laden’s former top aides told the FBI in 1997 that Mr. bin Laden had planted hundreds of terrorists, known as ‘sleepers’ or ‘submarines,’ who would lie low for years until they were activated.” This seemed to be so in this case. In fact, not only were these ‘sleepers’ well prepared (seven of the nineteen were former pilots (Lewis and Johnston), they also were able to fit into their surroundings quite well. For instance, consider one of the cell-leaders (a term coined by the FBI to describe the people involved) of the World Trade Center operation, Mohammed Atta. Mohammed was an Egyptian, born in 1968, who was born to a religious, middle-class family in Cairo. Atta was a precise thinker who was skeptical of the Western World and never drank alcohol or had relationships with women; however, a week or so after he bought his plane ticker for American Airlines flight 11, he and one of his Hamburg friends went drinking at a bar in Hollywood, Florida – a puzzling aspect of the story since Atta had shunned alcohol for so many years (Bergen 36). Atta was also said to have been seen with his confederates inquiring about a crop-duster plane in February 2001. Apparently, he made several questions in reference to how far the crop-dusting planes could fly and the volumes of poison they could carry (Bergen 36). Atta’s bags, which never made it onto the flight the morning of September 11, contained a five-page document in Arabic that contained instructions for Atta’s final moments on earth (FBI Press...