Published for the National Review, September 8, 2011
Dana Perino:
We lived in San Diego at the time, and that morning my husband had brought me my morning tea, as he did every day at 5:30 a.m. Then he slipped out of the front door to take our dog on his morning constitutional. I wrapped myself up in a sweatshirt and shuffled into the living room to turn on the TV. I squinted as I was still waking up, and I thought — hmmm, it looks like the World Trade Center is on fire. And right then I saw the second plane hit the second tower. It felt like being in the beginning of a Hollywood film, seeing things that could never really happen. Right?
Like everyone else, we have stories of going to work, being sent back home, watching the empty skies, and getting used to the quiet that was so different from watching the planes come into the airport near our house. We felt like we wanted to do something, but like most Americans we could only talk and pray and watch as the events unfolded. We communicated by e-mail to friends from all over the world. One message sticks in my memory — it was from a friend in England who said, “I feel like someone just kicked my cousin.” I thought she captured that perfectly.
Two months later I was back in Washington, D.C., working as a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice. Over the next several years, I had a chance to meet many brave souls who had rushed into buildings to help, who watched people jump to their deaths rather than be burned alive, and who had decided to join the military or the intelligence community to help take the fight to the enemy. I’m humbled by them every day.
Marc Thiessen:
I was in the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. I was blessed to be a few corridors down from the point of impact. But I felt the walls of my office shudder, and smelled the smoke that filled the hallways. Yet one memory stands out: To my surprise, no evacuation alarm ever sounded. We all simply filed out onto the lawn outside — where we looked back at the broken and burning Pentagon.
In the months that followed, the evacuation alarms in the Pentagon did go off several times, as false reports came in that other planes were headed our way. Each time, we exited the building and stood there looking up at the sky, waiting for the next attack. That attack never came.
There are only two possibilities that explain why: Either the terrorists lost interest in attacking America. Or we uncovered their plans and stopped them. The answer is self-evident.
In fact, unbeknownst to us, al-Qaeda had set a number of follow-on plots in motion, including a plot to blow up high-rise apartment buildings in the United States using natural gas; a plot to replicate 9/11 in Europe by flying hijacked airplanes into Heathrow airport and downtown London; a plot to replicate the East Africa embassy bombings in Pakistan by blowing up the U.S. consulate and Western residences in Karachi; a plot to blow up the U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti; and a plot to carry out the “second wave” here in America by flying a plane into the Library Tower in Los Angeles. An al-Qaeda cell was developing anthrax for attacks inside the United States. We did not know any of this.
These plots were uncovered, and the attacks disrupted, thanks to the counterterrorism tools the Bush administration put in place following 9/11 — including the CIA’s enhancedinterrogation program. Today, many in our country take the fact that we have gone nearly a decade without another terrorist attack for granted. They believe that the danger has passed. It has not. In December 2009, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula nearly succeeded in blowing up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it prepared to land in the city of Detroit. Less than one year later, AQAP penetrated our defenses a second time — this time getting two package bombs aboard planes headed for the United States, which were timed to blow up over the eastern seaboard.
By the Obama administration’s own admission, it was completely unaware that this terrorist network had developed the capability or intent to attack us here in America. Why were they taken by surprise? Because, unlike the period immediately after 9/11, the United States is no long capturing, detaining, and interrogating high-value terrorists who could tell us their plans to attack the homeland. Until a vigorous detention and interrogation regime is restored, we will be in danger of another terrorist attack like the one we suffered on 9/11 — or worse.
Tevi Troy:
The thing I most remember about 9/11 was how confused and unprepared everyone was — government officials and ordinary citizens alike. Cellphone service was gone very quickly, and very few officials, even at the senior levels, had Blackberries at the time. The streets of D.C. were filled with people who were wandering home, with very little information and high levels of anxiety. Rumors about a car bombing at the State Department and an attack on the White House heightened the tension.
In the decade since, the U.S. government has spent enormous sums of money aimed at making sure nothing like 9/11 ever happens again, and I am confident that we won’t see the same type of attack again. But our enemies are both evil and resourceful, and we must remain vigilant and nimble to prevent other types of attacks. What we learned on 9/11 is that we were not ready for that kind of attack, and we have acted to address that vulnerability. Unfortunately, there are other modes of attack, and the confusion I saw that day makes me wonder if we can ever be fully ready.
