I first published this approximately 15 years ago. I’m old, and so is my blog. Do you remember any of this?
I’ve spent most of today reading and reflecting on my education over the last decade. I don’t remember the first time I heard the word Al Qaeda. I don’t remember the first time I ever heard the name Osama bin Laden. I do remember where I was on September 11, 2001. I had been up most of the night taking care of trauma patients, and I was sleeping in that morning. The phone rang, and it was my mother-in-law. She was the Sentinel. She was always scanning the news. She called to tell us to turn on the TV. She said something terrible happened in New York. I thought she was crazy or misunderstood what she had seen. I handed the phone to my wife, grabbed the remote, and turned on the television. I saw nothing. There was nothing going on. After 5 minutes of flipping news channels, I finally saw it. I don’t know whether I was watching CNN or some other television network but I finally saw it. It’s one of those pictures that you never forget.
I’m sure over the next several days there will be lots of blogs and television shows reflecting on what’s happened in the last 10 (25) years. The New York Times has already started the series on 9/11. (They did a special series at the 10-year anniversary, but I’m not seeing a new series now, the 25th anniversary.) I just want to revisit some of the information and data that we’ve learned over the last 10 years. I’m not going to spend much time talking about the Patriot Act and how it has been abused over the last decade. I’m not going to talk about civil liberties and how Republicans have taken advantage of 9/11. I’m sure that these topics will be adequately covered by many others in the blogosphere.
In my opinion, the key to understanding the failure of 9/11 lies in the arrest and interrogation of Ramzi Yousef. Ramzi Yousef was the mastermind behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Once he was captured, authorities began to see into the mind of a Muslim extremist. Ramzi Yousef was associated with Osama bin Laden. Ramzi Yousef’s uncle was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. After escaping the country in 1993, Ramzi Yousef attempted an assassination of Benazir Bhutto in the summer of 1993. He then attempted to bomb an Israeli embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. These attempts failed. Yousef, a Sunni Muslim, bombed a Shiite holy site in Iran in June of 1994. He then went to Malaysia, where he began plotting the Bojinka plan (also known as the Manila plot). He and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed planned to blow up 12 US airliners as they flew over the Pacific Ocean. As they were preparing their 12 bombs, a fire broke out in Yousef’s apartment. One thing led to another, and authorities found a treasure trove of information in his apartment.
At the very least, authorities had the opportunity to see what one man was capable of doing around the world. The mistake was assuming this was just one man and not a movement. Only a few in the intelligence community understood that he was one of many. It wasn’t until 1998, with the embassy bombings, that many in the United States began to recognize this as a serious threat. For some, it took until 2000, the USS Cole bombing, before they believed that Al Qaeda would stop at nothing.
Ramzi Yousef is currently in a maximum-security prison in Colorado.
How did you first become aware of al-Qaeda, bin Laden, or the fact that we were a serious target? Where were you 10 (25) years ago?
More tomorrow on 9/11 and Al Qaeda.
