Survival: How three office mates, amid thousands of others, fled for their lives through a very tall trap.
The Los Angeles Times
September 16, 2001|SCOTT GOLD, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Adam Mayblum, 87th floor of the north tower, managing director at May Davis,
Harry Ramos, (fatality) the head trader at investment firm, May Davis
Micky Ramos, his wife
Hong Zhu, May Davis
Owen May, one of the May Davis presidents, lives in NJ
George Sleigh, American Bureau of Shipping, on the 91st floor of the north tower
Tom McGinnis, broker for Carr Futures, on the 92nd floor of north tower,
his wife, Iliana
his 4-year-old daughter Caitlin
Roko Camaj, 61, window cleaner at WTC since it opened in 1973, on roof of North Tower, fled down stairway
Window washer apprentice, Fabian Soto, three weeks on the job
Arlene Charles, an American Building Maintenance employee at Sky Lobby, 78th floor, North Tower
Carmen Griffith, her coworker for 20 years, same location, (Badly burned)
Thomas A. Humphreys, a Brown & Wood attorney, 57th-floor offices
Claiborne Johnston, who escaped from the 64th floor of the south tower.
Receptionist Dianne DeFontes, from law office on the 89th floor
Victor Ward, (fatality)
Rebecca Ward, his wife
When Adam felt the first rumble Tuesday morning, he glanced at the cords. They were oscillating like a pendulum, 3 feet in either direction.
He shot from his desk, turning his back on breakfast and e-mails to face the Statue of Liberty. Outside, pieces of paper fluttered through the air, "gently," he would say later, "on a breeze." He looked down at the tiny people staring up at him from 876 feet below and offered them a New York retort:
"What're you looking at?"
They were looking at terrorists ripping apart the World Trade Center.
It was 8:45 a.m., and American Flight 11, bound for Los Angeles, had just torn into the north side of Adam's building, the trade center's north tower. At 9:03, United Flight 175 would strike the south tower. At 9:50 a.m., the south tower would collapse. The north tower would follow at 10:28.
Adam Mayblum would find out all that much later.
For 103 minutes, he was one of thousands cast into an extraordinary purgatory. As many as 15,000 found their way to safety. Perhaps 5,000 did not.
Survival: How three office mates, amid thousands of others, fled for their lives through a very tall trap.
The Los Angeles Times
September 16, 2001|SCOTT GOLD, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Adam Mayblum enjoyed the storms that rumbled off the Atlantic. As they lashed his windows and strafed the steel beams, Adam would scoff: You think that's power? I'm on the 87th floor of the World Trade Center. That's power.
During the worst storms, the cords on his window shades would appear to sway a few inches, but it was an illusion. They actually hung straight, held steady by gravity. It was the tower that swayed, to absorb the weather.
For many, it was a matter of chance.
On the 87th floor of the north tower, one worker left his office and went to the bottom of the building to get a muffin. He lived. Another went to the bathroom. The roof collapsed on him, and he died.
Window washer apprentice Fabian Soto, three weeks on the job, low man on the union hall totem pole, was dispatched early Tuesday to wipe the nose-prints of tourists from the observation deck glass atop the north tower. He would not be seen again.
87th Floor
The confusion inside Adam's office at May Davis, where he is the managing director, lasted just seconds. He knew he needed to get out. The phones were still working, which seemed odd, and he called his son's nanny, told her to page his wife. There was a bomb, he said, but he was on his way out.
He took off his Van Heusen dress shirt, then ripped his T-shirt into pieces, soaked the pieces in water and gave them to some of his 13 colleagues to cover their faces. Among them: Harry Ramos, the head trader at the investment firm. Adam had worked with Harry off and on for 14 years. They were casual, beer-after-work friends.
Adam, 35, a native of Queens, put his shirt back on, grabbed his laptop and raced for the stairs through bright white smoke. Sparks bit at his ankles. He missed the stairs on his first pass. It was the World Trade Center. No one took the stairs.
After bolting two flights down, he realized that his partner and close friend, 46-year-old Hong Zhu, had been left behind. Adam went back upstairs and reached the office, now filled with smoke and burning jet fuel.
There was no sign of Hong, a quiet, private man, unmarried, devoted to his work and good at it.
He didn't make it out through the smoke, Adam thought.
He raced back down and made it to the 78th floor, a transfer lobby where one set of elevators and stairs ended and another began. He saw a stranger bravely staving off a wall of flames with a fire hose.
People were collapsing from the stress. Others tried to give comfort, stuffing a shirt under the head of the fallen before racing for the stairs.
Adam found Harry, wading into the pandemonium to help panicked workers into a safe stairwell. It was a reassuring sight, and a typical one. The trade center could be a competitive, back-stabbing workplace. But there is not one person, Adam said, who has ever said a bad thing about Harry, a father of two, a tall, handsome man.
Adam found another stairwell and began walking down again. His heart was beating faster and faster, and the muscles in his calves were contracting in spasms.
On the 53rd floor, Adam came across a heavyset man whose legs just wouldn't move anymore. The man was sitting on the stairs and said he needed help. Adam knew his bad back would make it hard to carry him, but he offered anyway. The man hesitated.
"Do you want to come, or do you want us to send help?" Adam shouted.
The man asked Adam to send help. Adam said he would.
Geography
The hijackers did not strike either tower with their wings level. Instead, they hit at an angle.
Twelve employees of the American Bureau of Shipping, a nonprofit group that promotes safety and property protection at sea, were on the 91st floor of the north tower when the first plane hit almost exactly at their level.
But they were on the northwest corner of the building. The bulk of the plane's fuselage entered the building about 100 feet south of them. The plane's left wing, banked toward the ground, wiped out the east side of the floor. But the plane's right wing, banked toward the sky, sliced through the office above them.
George Sleigh had been at work at ABS since about 7:30 a.m. He was in his cubicle, surrounded by technical shipping manuals.
"I heard this unusual sound. A roaring sound," he said. "As I looked up I saw the plane. I thought: 'This guy is really low.' "
A wing flashed past his eyes, followed by the plane's smooth belly. Then the world caved in. Down the hall from ABS, an office was obliterated. Above them, Marsh USA Inc., an insurance and risk management firm that occupied the 93rd through 100th floors, was hit badly. It would later report as many as 400 workers missing.
Sleigh, who occupied the easternmost desk in the ABS office, was buried under a pile of ceiling tiles and bookshelves. His colleagues were fine, as surprised they were still alive as they were that a plane had just crashed into their building. They dug Sleigh out, and they all escaped.
"I can't believe that I'm alive," Sleigh would later say. "I don't know why I was spared."
Tom McGinnis, a 41-year-old broker for Carr Futures, was on the 92nd floor of the north tower for a business meeting when the attack began. He called his wife, Iliana, his high school sweetheart and the mother of 4-year-old daughter Caitlin. He told her he could see people jumping from floors above him.
"This doesn't look good," he said. "There's no way out of this room. . . . I love you. Take care of Caitlin."
"Don't hang up," Iliana said. "Don't hang up. You are coming home."
She would not hear from him again.
53rd Floor
Hong was alive.
He had been behind Adam in the stairwell the whole time, but in the noise and the smoke and the sparks, Adam didn't know. They had apparently passed each other on stairwell A, Hong running down, Adam running up to rescue him.
When Hong got to the 53rd floor, he came across Harry Ramos. Harry had stopped to help the heavyset man--the same man Adam met earlier. "I'll give you a hand," Hong said.
Together, Harry and Hong helped the man down one more flight. They found an office, a securities firm, where the air-conditioning was working. While they tried to get a dose of cool air into the heavyset man's lungs, Hong found an elevator.
"No! No!" a Port Authority official screamed. "Don't take it!"
Hong and Harry tried to send a magazine down in the elevator. In the confusion of the moment, they reasoned that if the elevator came back, and the magazine was still inside, it would be safe. That was what passed for logic at the time. They pressed the "down" button, but the doors didn't close. So Hong decided that he would be the guinea pig instead.
He stepped inside, and the doors closed behind him.
Choice
In the center of each floor of the twin, 110-story towers at the World Trade Center, the hallways converged in a spot employees called the crossroads.
The path down began at that spot. In many cases, escape depended on choices--left or right, up or down, stairwell A or B, stay or go.
Roko Camaj, 61, had cleaned the windows of the World Trade Center since it opened in 1973. He was on the roof when the first plane struck, hanging the rigging for the machines that scrubbed the windows. He began racing down the stairs but was told on the 105th that he should return to the roof.
He called his wife on his cell phone and told her he was heading up to wait for a helicopter. Then she heard a scream. The line went dead. She wouldn't hear from him again.
Arlene Charles had a choice too.
An American Building Maintenance employee, she had started her shift at 5:45 a.m., turning on the elevators that had been shut down for the night.
Then, filling in for a vacationing co-worker, she headed to her assignment on the 78th-floor sky lobby and began saying "Good morning," in her Grenadan drawl, to the arriving executives. A group of visitors was headed to a breakfast conference at the Windows on the World restaurant. didn't Windows have a direct elevator up? Patrons didn't transfer at the 78th-floor.
The plane struck the north tower, just above her, about 15 minutes later.
"I squeezed between the desk, put my head down and put my jacket over my face," Charles said. "I was so scared to look up, but when I started peeking, I heard a lady screaming."
It was Carmen Griffith. They had worked together for 20 years, another American Building Maintenance employee? swapping stories as their children grew from toddlers to teenagers. Now Griffith, who had been standing nearby when a glob of burning jet fuel burst through the elevator shafts, was crawling toward her. Charles looked at Griffith's hands pawing at the floor. Skin was peeling from her fingers.
People sprinted past toward safety, but Charles refused to leave without her friend. With the help of an executive who stopped, she soaked Griffith with water from a nearby office, then picked her up and began a slow walk down 78 flights of stairs.
"She was crying," Charles said. "She was burning."
Charles' walkie-talkie crackled with static and voices all the way down as other workers with radios urged them on.
"I'd say: 'I'm on the fortysomething floor, on the twentysomething floor,' " Charles said. "They said: 'Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!' But I said: 'I can't hurry. I have to help Carmen.' "
Around the mid-40s, two men sprinted past them, then doubled back to help. Together, they made it out after 90 minutes, 15 minutes before the collapse, Griffith alive but with burns on 60% of her body.
44th Floor
Adam was progressing steadily toward freedom, stopping occasionally to counsel people from his office, to usher a few of them into the line ahead of him.
His cell phone rang. It was his parents, calling from Delray Beach, Fla. Adam was nervous but betrayed little of his fear. They were hysterical.
"Get out," his father said sternly.
"Relax," Adam said. "I'm fine."
And he was, in a way. He wasn't hurt. He was making good progress. He felt oddly bored. He couldn't believe it himself. But he was.
Harry and Hong, meanwhile, were in trouble.
Hong took the elevator down to the 44th floor, the next transfer lobby. So far, so good. He pressed "52," went back up and collected Harry and the heavyset man.
On 44--halfway down--Hong, Harry and the heavyset man got off the elevator and stumbled across the lobby toward the last bank of elevators that would take them all the way down.
Hong pressed the "down" button again. Nothing. They would have to take the stairs.
Harry and Hong each took an arm of the heavyset man and draped them over their shoulders. "One floor at a time," Hong said. "One step at a time."
They had been trying to get out for an hour and five minutes. They were on the 39th floor when they felt the south tower collapse.
"We really have to move," Hong said.
The rumbles of the collapsing tower next door seemed to sap the heavyset man of his last gasps of energy. He sat down again.
"I can't move my legs," he said. "I can't do it anymore."
The Stairs
In both towers, the stairs were a lifeline that grew increasingly frayed as time passed.
It takes a long time to walk down 90 flights of stairs.
"It was not designed for quick evacuation," said Thomas A. Humphreys, a Brown & Wood attorney who escaped once from the firm's 57th-floor offices after the 1993 car-bombing at the trade center, and then again Tuesday. "You had to get everyone in our building out in 90 minutes. That's tough."
At first, even in the upper floors, the exodus was calm and orderly. Someone had time to break into a vending machine and pass out grape sodas. Someone made a joke about how the water from sprinklers and fire hoses was ruining their shoes.
"I was at the tail end of the crowd," said Humphreys. "You wait. People are orderly. It's crowded and it's slow. You go down a few steps and it would stop. Some of the stops were five minutes. You don't know why."
As time passed, the stairs became increasingly crowded. Heat began to build, dust poured into the stairwells and the water was around their ankles.
All the while, the building was coming apart. Walls creaked and then cracked.
"It seemed we were walking down very calm, very orderly . . . and all of a sudden you felt like the ground was falling out from under you," said Claiborne Johnston, who escaped from the 64th floor of the south tower.
"You knew the structure had been altered severely, and the rest of the way down you could feel that."
Veterans of the 1993 bombing knew that stairwell B--there were three in all, A, B and C--was the widest and could accommodate the most people.
On most passes of most staircases, there was room for two people to stand side by side, but that didn't last long. From the top, the injured were being carried out, and those who could walk were forced to step aside.
Near the 40th floor, workers began encountering the firefighters coming up, many of them carrying heavy gear and sweating profusely.
Receptionist Dianne DeFontes took to the stairs from her law office on the 89th floor. After walking down 50 floors, she ran into the first wave of firefighters, their ruddy faces peering up the stairs.
"You're going to be all right," one of the firefighters said.
"I thought, they're going up there and they may not come back down," she said. "The night that I came home I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I saw a face. I thought, they may not have wives or girlfriends, but they all have mothers, and they're going to be devastated."
39th Floor
Hong was screaming at the heavyset man to move.
"You don't have to move your legs!" Hong shouted, as Harry waited with him. "Just move your butt. Slide down, one at a time. He moved two steps, and that was it. He couldn't go on. 'Let's go!' I shouted."
A firefighter ran up to them. Hong expected that he would join in to get the heavy man to move. Instead, the firefighter turned to Hong. The firefighter knew what they could not: For the stragglers, it was too late.
"Who the [expletive] are you, screaming at him to get out?" the firefighter shouted. "You get out!"
"I wanted to help," Hong said. "But at that moment, I didn't see how we could."
Hong looked at Harry, who was still standing with the heavyset man.
"I'm coming down with you," Harry told the man. "I'm not going to leave."
"I left," Hong said. "Alone."
Adam was nearing the bottom. Still trudging down the stairs, he told everyone around him to link hands. They ended up at a courtyard where a pleasant fountain had been just an hour earlier. Now it was a pile of ash, dust, gnarled metal and body parts.
His cell phone rang as the group headed toward Houston Street. It was his wife. Adam fell to his knees.
"Hong is alive," she told him.
The Reunion
Yesterday, the skies cleared over New York, a bright and chilly fall day. Just over the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan, a small group gathered at the tree-shaded home of Owen May, one of the May Davis presidents. They lit the barbecue about noon.
Adam was there. Hong was there too. Micky Ramos, Harry's wife, was there.
And there was one guest with only the slightest connection to the investment company.
Adam, like many survivors, had grown weary of telling his story to his friends and relatives. So he sent them an e-mail describing the ordeal. And they sent the e-mail to their friends and relatives, who sent it to their friends and relatives.
At 2:50 a.m. Saturday, his phone rang. The e-mail had made it to San Francisco, where it was read by someone who knew a woman in New York named Rebecca Ward--and knew that Rebecca's husband, a heavyset man, was missing. The San Francisco man got in touch with Rebecca Ward, who called Adam. The heavyset man was her husband, Victor.
On Saturday afternoon, Rebecca Ward came to Owen May's house to learn how Victor was comforted in his last moments, how Harry refused to leave him behind.
Harry's wife was walking around with a floor plan of the World Trade Center.
She questioned everyone who had been inside the north tower, convinced that somehow, Harry--the only May Davis employee still missing--is alive.
She developed a picture of his escape, learned that Harry was on 87 when the plane hit, that he stopped to help on 78, that he met up with Hong on 53.
But as hard as she pushed, as many questions as she asked, the picture began to fade after that.
And finally, on stairwell A of the 36th floor, it went dark.
*
Times staff writers Lee Romney, Nicholas Riccardi, Geoffrey Mohan, Solomon Moore, Doug Smith, Abigail Goldman, Carla Rivera, Henry Weinstein, Ted Rohrlich, Steve Berry, John L. Mitchell, Kurt Streeter, Mimi Avins, Jeffrey Rabin, Robin Fields, Patrick J. McDonnell, Jocelyn Y. Stewart and Massie Ritsch in Los Angeles, and Jill Leovy in New York contributed to this story.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
'At Union Square, a Family's Pain Surpasses Politics,' LA Times
The Los Angeles Times
September 16, 2001| STEVE LOPEZ
Kathleen Kelly of Bethlehem, Pa.
Jeffrey Stutsman, from San Diego State
Dick McCloskey, a commercial real estate appraiser from South Bend, Ind.
his daughter, Julie
his daughter, Leslie
his son, Noah McCloskey,
his son-in-law Earl,
his Katie Marie (fatality)
All of the named people in this article are agents of the conspiracy. The left-right binary is contrived in the extreme, with players on both sides recruited. The giveaway is the fact that the victim was only two months in her new out-of-town job, as are Stutsman and Kelly imported for this duty.
NEW YORK — On the fourth day, the park at Union Square in lower Manhattan became a sanctuary for those trying to move on and those who can't let go. Those who live in penthouse suites and those who sleep in the bushes.
The peaceniks came, and the saber rattlers too. Buddhists prayed on the lawn, a street preacher shook a fist at the blue September sky, a Korean priest led a hymn.
And the McCloskeys of Indiana came to light a candle for daughter and sister Katie Marie.
I had wandered the park before the McCloskeys arrived. I had lingered over posters of the missing and looked over my shoulder to see their eyes follow me under the trees. Dogs barked, children laughed, adults cried. There was a whisper of fall in the air, a spirit rising in a thousand glances that said: We'll get through this together.
Kathleen Kelly of Bethlehem, Pa., took a piece of lavender chalk and scribbled her politics on the pavement, as hundreds have done in Union Square.
"The real cause of terrorism is U.S. foreign policy," she wrote.
A man watched, disgusted, then scuffed the words with his shoes.
Another man was growing weary of the doves preaching nonintervention at the park, which has always been a place to stand on a soapbox. George Washington himself, with "peace" and "love" chalked all over his statue and flowers at his feet, looked like a hippie on a horse.
"This is a bunch of B.S.," a man named Jeffrey Stutsman told a peacenik who had spread out a Gandhi quote on the lawn.
Peace will not come out of a clash of arms, but of justice lived.
Stutsman, 29, was playing hooky from San Diego State, wandering the United States in a Volkswagen, when he learned of the attack. He gunned it for Manhattan, patriotism burning like a booster rocket on his Jetta, and came straight to Union Square.
"What about justice for those killed?" Stutsman asked Mike Healy, 20, who says he lives in the park.
"Innocent people will die if we retaliate," Healy said.
Stutsman and I stepped away for a moment and into a cloud of incense.
"These people all want peace and love," he said in frustration. "But they don't want to make any sacrifices for anything."
Stutsman went back to the front lines; I went back to the public gallery of missing persons. And suddenly, against the backdrop of so unfathomably beautiful a day, they struck me as more haunting than ever.
It was a photo of a little girl of about 2, posing with her missing father, that did it.
I had never wanted more for the terrorists to die.
I turned in the direction of the World Trade Center and saw a family approach. Just an ordinary-looking American family, the father carrying something under his arm.
September 16, 2001| STEVE LOPEZ
Kathleen Kelly of Bethlehem, Pa.
Jeffrey Stutsman, from San Diego State
Dick McCloskey, a commercial real estate appraiser from South Bend, Ind.
his daughter, Julie
his daughter, Leslie
his son, Noah McCloskey,
his son-in-law Earl,
his Katie Marie (fatality)
All of the named people in this article are agents of the conspiracy. The left-right binary is contrived in the extreme, with players on both sides recruited. The giveaway is the fact that the victim was only two months in her new out-of-town job, as are Stutsman and Kelly imported for this duty.
NEW YORK — On the fourth day, the park at Union Square in lower Manhattan became a sanctuary for those trying to move on and those who can't let go. Those who live in penthouse suites and those who sleep in the bushes.
The peaceniks came, and the saber rattlers too. Buddhists prayed on the lawn, a street preacher shook a fist at the blue September sky, a Korean priest led a hymn.
And the McCloskeys of Indiana came to light a candle for daughter and sister Katie Marie.
I had wandered the park before the McCloskeys arrived. I had lingered over posters of the missing and looked over my shoulder to see their eyes follow me under the trees. Dogs barked, children laughed, adults cried. There was a whisper of fall in the air, a spirit rising in a thousand glances that said: We'll get through this together.
Kathleen Kelly of Bethlehem, Pa., took a piece of lavender chalk and scribbled her politics on the pavement, as hundreds have done in Union Square.
"The real cause of terrorism is U.S. foreign policy," she wrote.
A man watched, disgusted, then scuffed the words with his shoes.
Another man was growing weary of the doves preaching nonintervention at the park, which has always been a place to stand on a soapbox. George Washington himself, with "peace" and "love" chalked all over his statue and flowers at his feet, looked like a hippie on a horse.
"This is a bunch of B.S.," a man named Jeffrey Stutsman told a peacenik who had spread out a Gandhi quote on the lawn.
Peace will not come out of a clash of arms, but of justice lived.
Stutsman, 29, was playing hooky from San Diego State, wandering the United States in a Volkswagen, when he learned of the attack. He gunned it for Manhattan, patriotism burning like a booster rocket on his Jetta, and came straight to Union Square.
"What about justice for those killed?" Stutsman asked Mike Healy, 20, who says he lives in the park.
"Innocent people will die if we retaliate," Healy said.
Stutsman and I stepped away for a moment and into a cloud of incense.
"These people all want peace and love," he said in frustration. "But they don't want to make any sacrifices for anything."
Stutsman went back to the front lines; I went back to the public gallery of missing persons. And suddenly, against the backdrop of so unfathomably beautiful a day, they struck me as more haunting than ever.
It was a photo of a little girl of about 2, posing with her missing father, that did it.
I had never wanted more for the terrorists to die.
I turned in the direction of the World Trade Center and saw a family approach. Just an ordinary-looking American family, the father carrying something under his arm.
I would learn that he was Dick McCloskey, a commercial real estate appraiser from South Bend, Ind. That he was with daughters Julie and Leslie, son Noah, son-in-law Earl, and that they were looking for daughter Katie Marie.
She was 24, and she had been thrilled about her recent move to New York. Two months ago, Katie began work as a computer technician for a company on the 97th floor of the World Trade Center's north tower. Her desk was on the south side of the building, and she told her family she simply could not believe that she could look out the window of her office and see the Statue of Liberty.
"The first plane had to have hit pretty much right where she was," Dick McCloskey said.
When they didn't hear from her, the family drove to New York, holding onto the slim possibility that she got out somehow. In her apartment, they found her journal. Over and over, she wrote about how happy she was with her new life.
The family walked the streets of New York together, handing out the flier on the fleeting hope that someone had seen Katie, somewhere, alive. They filed a missing person report with the police and went to all the hospitals. Dick McCloskey gave a DNA sample.
At Union Square on Saturday, as the peaceniks squared off against the saber rattlers and hymns filled the air, the McCloskeys found a vigil under a lamppost. Dick McCloskey laid down a flier, and Katie looked up at the sky with her family's love in her eyes.
Noah McCloskey set two candles on the flier as paperweights. He lit both, but the wind blew them out.
"We've basically given up hope now," Noah said. "We're going back home tomorrow."
It helped, Noah said, that so many people were so supportive in New York. It helped too that President Bush came to offer respects for the dead, thanks to rescue workers and a promise of justice.
Noah bent down and lit the candles again. Once more, they blew out.
As they were about to leave, Dick McCloskey came to me sobbing. I reached for his hand, but he put an arm around me instead, and he spoke a father's words of love and strength.
"Say good things," he said. "Say good things."
Steve Lopez can be reached at steve.lopez@latimes.com
The Los Angeles Times
Terrorists Attack New York, Pentagon
September 12, 2001 | By MAGGIE FARLEY and MATEA GOLD, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
In the worst terrorist attack ever against the United States, hijackers struck at the preeminent symbols of the nation's wealth and might Tuesday, flying airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and killing or injuring thousands of people. As a horrified nation watched on television, the twin towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan collapsed into flaming rubble after two Boeing 767s rammed their upper stories.
U.S. Command Takes Wing Amid Chaos
September 12, 2001 | EDWIN CHEN and ESTHER SCHRADER, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
In the minutes and hours after hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the president's whereabouts were kept secret, his words short and his movements seemingly erratic. Vice President Dick Cheney was in a command bunker underneath the White House within 15 minutes of the attacks. Defense Secretary Donald H.
Local Firms Brace for a Slowdown
September 14, 2001 | By LESLIE EARNEST and JAMES GRANELLI, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
With no games to show on its 64 televisions and four big screens, the National Sports Grill in Orange told two-thirds of its weekend staff to stay home. The banquet halls on the Queen Mary won't be packed this weekend either. Already, two big business gatherings, the Latino Beach Festival and a wedding, were called off. It's the "uncertainty and the national neurosis," said Jeff King of King's Seafood Co.
Fed Again Boosts Economy's Liquidity
September 15, 2001 | By PETER G. GOSSELIN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
The Federal Reserve pumped massive amounts of extra cash into the American economy Friday and arranged for huge dollar swaps with the central banks of Canada and England as it prepared for the reopening of U.S. financial markets in the wake of Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Fed provided banks and investment dealers more than $80 billion in short-term loans for use over the weekend by individuals and companies caught short by the chaos of the attacks.
At Union Square, a Family's Pain Surpasses Politics
September 16, 2001 | By STEVE LOPEZ
On the fourth day, the park at Union Square in lower Manhattan became a sanctuary for those trying to move on and those who can't let go. Those who live in penthouse suites and those who sleep in the bushes. The peaceniks came, and the saber rattlers too. Buddhists prayed on the lawn, a street preacher shook a fist at the blue September sky, a Korean priest led a hymn. And the McCloskeys of Indiana came to light a candle for daughter and sister Katie Marie.
Last Soldier to Leave Vietnam Is Feared Dead
September 16, 2001 | RICHARD T. COOPER and ROBERT A. ROSENBLATT, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
He was last in the line moving up the ramp into a waiting C-130 at Tan Son Nhut air base--a tall, husky man with an open Midwestern face who was about to step into history. It was March 29, 1973, in Saigon. And Master Sgt. Max Beilke was officially designated as the last American combat soldier to leave Vietnam. He had survived two wars, Korea and Vietnam. Now he was going home to his family in Minnesota.
You're on the 87th Floor, and Something's Terribly Wrong . . .
September 16, 2001 | By SCOTT GOLD, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Adam Mayblum enjoyed the storms that rumbled off the Atlantic. As they lashed his windows and strafed the steel beams, Adam would scoff: You think that's power? I'm on the 87th floor of the World Trade Center. That's power. During the worst storms, the cords on his window shades would appear to sway a few inches, but it was an illusion. They actually hung straight, held steady by gravity. It was the tower that swayed, to absorb the weather.
Terrorism Can't Defeat Heroism
September 16, 2001 | By Diane Pucin
The little park on the corner of 35th Street and Second Avenue holds two basketball courts, two handball courts and a couple of benches. On Wednesday afternoon, pick-up basketball games were played on both courts. Four men each were on the handball courts. Two older men sat on one of the benches. Joseph Leslie, 80, a World War II veteran, and his best friend, Jerome Goldman, 81, remarked on the talents of one of the young men who had just dunked a basketball.
Workers' Hope Starts to Fade With Time
September 16, 2001 | By CHARLES ORNSTEIN and DAVID ZUCCHINO, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
On day five of New York's state of siege, as three fallen fire chiefs were lowered into their graves, something changed in the minds of some of the men digging into the earth at ground zero. They did not yet give up hope, but they began to fear the moment when hope will die. It was a subtle shift, like the thought that struck Rich Nappi as he tore with his hands at the debris of the World Trade Center on Saturday morning.
Two Friends, Two Doomed Flights
September 16, 2001 | JOE MATHEWS, TIMES STAFF WRITER
You may think of it as the strangest collision in the strangest week in American memory. You might call it the deadly serendipity of circumstances, an incredible freak of science and mathematics and airline schedules, or the terrible collateral of terrorist carnage. Ruth Clifford McCourt and Paige Farley Hackel would say you were wrong to think of their story as random--if only they were still here to tell it. McCourt and Hackel were best friends for more than a decade.
Yemenis Also Died in Attack
September 17, 2001 | By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Among the nearly 5,000 missing in the World Trade Center attack are dozens--maybe even hundreds--of victims from Yemen, the ancestral home of prime suspect Osama bin Laden. The losses have been especially heavy to bear because many Yemeni Americans and Muslim Americans have been fearful of mourning in public--and shamed by any connection, however tenuous, to Bin Laden. This weekend, 22-year-old Yemeni immigrant Rabyaah Althaibani was asked to attend a vigil in Manhattan.
Eureka Feels Empathy for New York
September 17, 2001 | By JOHN M. GLIONNA, TIMES STAFF WRITER
This fog-shrouded fishing and logging town flanked by 100-year-old redwoods stands in deep contrast to the concrete canyons of midtown Manhattan a continent away. Yet residents say that last week's World Trade Center tragedy has made them all feel like New Yorkers. "That Manhattan skyline is as familiar to many people here as their own hometown," said Cliff Berkowitz, program manager at a local radio station.
Southwest Resuming TV Campaign With 2 Ads
September 19, 2001 | By GREG JOHNSON, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Southwest Airlines, which quickly returned to full service after last week's terrorist attacks, tonight will reinstate television advertising with a pair of new commercials, the company said Tuesday. Southwest is believed to be the first major U.S. airline to reinstate advertising of its service since the attacks. United Airlines, American Airlines and other major carriers have yet to say when they will resume advertising campaigns, which were halted immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Taliban Rejects Bush Ultimatum
September 22, 2001 | TYLER MARSHALL and NORMAN KEMPSTER, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban rejected President Bush's ultimatum Friday, vowing to continue to protect Osama bin Laden and his terrorist followers even if that provokes a war and the destruction of the regime.
Heroic Firefighter Is Alive--and Still on the Job
September 22, 2001 | DAVID ZUCCHINO, TIMES STAFF WRITER
In the photo, sweaty young Mike Kehoe is headed up--all the way up a smoky stairwell in the north tower of the World Trade Center just after 9 a.m. on Sept. 11. Kehoe wasn't aware that someone was taking his photograph at that particular moment. He's a firefighter. His mind was focused on hustling all the way up the tower and evacuating office workers. "Civilians," as he calls them.
A New View of High-Rise Firefighting
September 24, 2001 | By DOUG SMITH and STEVE BERRY and MITCHELL LANDSBERG, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
Modern firefighting and rescue, built upon hard lessons from deadly disasters going back more than a century, had two fundamental beliefs shattered in the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. For firefighters, the rule for saving lives and property in a burning high-rise is to attack the fire from inside the building. At least 300 men performing that duty on Sept. 11 are presumed dead. For high-rise workers, the rule is to stay put until told to evacuate.
When Anton Met Anthony
September 27, 2001 | By SUSAN KING, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Anton Yelchin is trying to hold back his tears. But it's a losing battle. His blue eyes well up. His voice cracks. The 12-year-old has been reeling with pain and fear since the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon and he wants to get his feelings off his chest. "I can't believe somebody would do something to our country," says Yelchin, shaking his head in disbelief. "I am really proud to live here. I am proud to live in a country where people love their country so much.
N.Y. Job Fair Draws the Displaced, Dispirited
October 18, 2001 | By THOMAS S. MULLIGAN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
A well-dressed crowd of at least 10,000, many brandishing resumes and business cards, descended on Madison Square Garden on Wednesday for a one-day job fair aimed at workers displaced by the World Trade Center attacks. Police turned away thousands as the throng grew to nearly twice the expected size and encircled the landmark Midtown arena.
Manhattan Neighbors Plan to 'Rely on the Local Folks'
October 26, 2001 | By GERALDINE BAUM, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Lately, nobody has been immune to the sadness here. But last week, the boisterous New York was back--for one night at least. About 500 people spilled out onto the streets around Daddy-O, a Greenwich Village bar, to benefit the neighborhood firehouse, which lost 11 firefighters when the towers of the World Trade Center disintegrated. Similar benefits are taking place at restaurants and bars all over the city.
Those Who Seized the Moment
November 22, 2001 | By RICHARD MAROSI and MEGAN GARVEY, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
The bumper stickers are just beginning to appear. "Flight 93," they read. "Let's roll!" The same phrase capped President Bush's speech to the nation earlier this month--the words of a passenger on a doomed jetliner symbolizing the nation's resolve. There have been television documentaries about Flight 93. A book is reportedly in the works. Near rural Shanksville, Pa.
Widow Moved by Outpouring of Generosity
December 23, 2001 | K. CONNIE KANG, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Sheila Marie Ornedo, heavy with child, is due to give birth in February. The Los Angeles nurse is alone this Christmas, preparing for her baby girl's arrival without Ruben, her husband, by her side. Ruben is the one who should be massaging her aching back, as he used to; picking her up from work at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and taking her out to dinner, as he used to. He should be helping to fix up the nursery, as he was going to.
2002
Plans Moving Ahead for Redeveloping Trade Center Site
February 1, 2002 | By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF, TIMES ARCHITECTURE CRITIC
The developer who holds the lease to the World Trade Center property is completing the first comprehensive master plan for the 16-acre site that sources say would consist of a number of office buildings clustered around a single soaring tower, a memorial park and two cultural venues. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, one of New York City's most established firms, the plan will be presented by developer Larry Silverstein to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.
Teenager Takes Initiative to Aid Victims' Families
March 5, 2002 | By SUZIE ST. JOHN, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
More than most, Chris Finefrock felt compelled to do something to help the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The teenager who recently lived in the Conejo Valley worked last summer as an intern at the Los Angeles office of Cantor Fitzgerald, an institutional bond trading firm that had extensive offices in the World Trade Center's north tower. The firm lost about 700 of its 1,000 employees. "When I first heard about the planes crashing, I had this surreal feeling.
2 New Names on 9/11 Confirmed Dead List
May 26, 2002
Two new names, Michael Horn and Nitin Parandkar, were added in recent days to the list of confirmed dead in the terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center. This updates accountings that have appeared in The Times each Sunday since Sept. 11. The number of people unaccounted for, according to New York City officials and Associated Press, is now believed to be 115.
At West Point, New Breed of Cadet
June 1, 2002 | By JOHN HENDREN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
When President Bush today addresses the first students to graduate from West Point since Sept. 11, he will encounter a class of cadets who have flocked to a new course on terrorism and are clamoring to join the infantry. Their shifting interests underscore what is described as a new clarity of mission at the U.S.
Teachers Look for the Lessons of Sept. 11
September 6, 2002 | By ERIKA HAYASAKI and JOE MATHEWS, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
David Massey has given his students at Chatsworth High School an unusual weekend homework assignment. Find and tape television footage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and bring it to school for extra credit. The tapes will form the basis of a lesson Massey is planning for his advanced film and video studies class on Wednesday, the first anniversary of the deadly attack. "We'll look at the imagery of Sept.
Life Amid the Anguish of Loss
September 8, 2002 | By STEVE CHAWKINS, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Colleen Rastovich shuddered the other day when she heard a plane flying low over her toy-strewn east Ventura backyard. But the moment, like a million others since Sept. 11, passed. Rastovich was a continent away from the devastation of that day. But for her and a number of other people who live and work in Ventura County, it was as close as an empty chair at the dining room table, a dear friend never seen again, a riotous laugh never heard. For them, the shock and aftershocks of Sept.
Suliman Ali Baldo
September 11, 2002
Suliman Ali Baldo, 52, works in the Empire State Building as a researcher for Human Rights Watch. Baldo left Sudan seven years ago to escape intensifying harassment of critics of the government. At that time, Sudan was a haven for Osama bin Laden and locked in civil war, with radical Islam gaining influence. Because of Sept. 11, Sudan began to change, and Baldo is going home. * "On Sept. 11, I was here in the Empire State Building.
The Plots and Designs of Al Qaeda's Engineer
December 22, 2002 | By Terry McDermott, Josh Meyer and Patrick J. McDonnell, Times Staff Writers
Senior Pakistani and American intelligence officials say the operational commander of Al Qaeda, the man believed to have planned the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, narrowly avoided capture during a raid in which authorities took his two young sons into custody.
2003
European Investigators Follow Voyage of Stolen U.S. Passport
January 14, 2003 | By Sebastian Rotella, Times Staff Writer
On July 7, 1998, thieves snatched a passport from a car driven by a U.S. tourist here, a small rip-off that became a footnote in a major act of terrorism. The passport belonged to an Iranian American medical student from St. Louis. It made its way into the hands of Ramzi Binalshibh, an alleged coordinator of the Al Qaeda cell in Hamburg, Germany, that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.
Prelude to 9/11: A Hijacker's Love, Lies
January 27, 2003 | By Dirk Laabs and Terry McDermott, Special to The Times
The letter from the dead man did not surface for months after it was sent, after, presumably, Aysel Senguen had enough time to fully absorb the grim deeds and suicide death of her fiance, Ziad Jarrah. Ziad sent the letter and a package of personal belongings to Aysel from the United States on Sept. 10, 2001, a day before he and three comrades hijacked United Airlines Flight 93, set it on a heading for Washington, D.C.
Transcripts of 9/11 Calls Show Fear, Confusion
August 29, 2003 | By Josh Getlin and Robert Lee Hotz, Times Staff Writers
Minutes after an airplane slammed into the World Trade Center's north tower, the assistant general manager of Windows on the World made the first of her four emergency phone calls to police, frantically seeking a way to help scores of guests escape the 106th-floor restaurant. "We're getting no direction up here," said Christine Olender, who reported that smoke was filling the dining room. "The condition up on 106 is getting worse."
For Sept. 11's burn victims, a slow recovery
October 27, 2003 | Roni Rabin, Newsday
Harry Waizer talks in a whisper about getting back to work. His vocal cords were charred in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, possibly when he inhaled burning jet fuel, and now he is pondering how to put his extensive experience in corporate tax law to use, even though his voice is weak and he is distracted by pain. For Mary Jos, the ability to concentrate comes and goes.
2004
Silent witnesses to Sept. 11
July 1, 2004 | By Duane Noriyuki, Times Staff Writer
An unfathomable day is described in the simplest of terms -- a telephone, a squeegee handle, a pair of shoes. They are ordinary items that unexpectedly elicit the "quiet horror" of 9/11 in an exhibition opening today at the Japanese American National Museum. In all, 45 objects, as well as images and video, are included in "September 11: Bearing Witness to History," a Smithsonian traveling exhibition from the National Museum of American History. Each item has its own story to tell.
Tracking the Flights Hijacked on 9/11
June 18, 2004
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, United Airlines Flights 175 and 93 and American Airlines Flights 77 and 11 were hijacked by terrorists. As the attack unfolded, the flights were frantically tracked by air traffic controllers; the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA; and the Northeast Air Defense Sector, or NEADS, of the military's aerospace defense command. Following are excepts of the staff report on the events prepared for the commission investigating the attacks.
Payout to Victims of 9/11 Tops $38 Billion
November 9, 2004 | By Maggie Farley, Times Staff Writer
Victims of the Sept. 11 attacks received more than $38 billion in compensation -- a figure 30 times the size of the largest previous payout for a terrorism event and one that is unlikely to be matched, a Rand Corp. study released Monday said. Insurance companies and the federal government provided more than 90% of the payments, and some victims were overpaid while others fell through the cracks, according to the Santa Monica-based think tank.
2005
Predecessors Erred on Terrorism, Bush Says
September 23, 2005 | By Warren Vieth, Times Staff Writer
President Bush said Thursday that mistakes made by three of his predecessors, including the Reagan administration's restraint after the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, had emboldened terrorists and helped set the stage for the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush said he was determined not to repeat the pattern by pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq before the insurgency there is contained and Iraqi forces are able to provide adequate security.
2006
Agent Faults FBI on 9/11
March 21, 2006 | Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer
The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui weeks before Sept. 11 told a federal jury Monday that his own superiors were guilty of "criminal negligence and obstruction" for blocking his attempts to learn whether the terrorist was part of a larger cell about to hijack planes in the United States. During intense cross-examination, Special Agent Harry Samit -- a witness for the prosecution -- accused his bosses of acting only to protect their positions within the FBI.
High Turnout, Emotions for `United 93'
May 1, 2006 | By Josh Friedman, Times Staff Writer
Ever since Hollywood greenlighted the first feature film to dramatize the events of Sept. 11, 2001, the question has been asked: Will Americans be ready to see it? Last weekend, moviegoers indicated that the answer was yes. As "United 93," Universal Pictures' recounting of the passenger uprising aboard one of the hijacked jets, opened last weekend, moviegoers all over the country turned out -- if not in droves -- in strong numbers.
Moussaoui Starts Serving Life Sentence in Colorado
May 14, 2006 | From the Associated Press
Convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui began serving his life sentence at the nation's most secure prison on Saturday after U.S. marshals flew him overnight to southern Colorado from Virginia. Marshals brought Moussaoui before dawn to the Supermax federal prison, where he is to spend 23 hours a day in his cell and have little to no contact with other criminals at the facility. "He has now begun serving his sentence of life without the possibility of release," the U.S.
Moussaoui Jury Hears the Panic From 9/11
April 11, 2006 | By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer
For more than four years they had waited to walk into a courtroom and hold someone responsible for the wreckage of their lives. In the long days and nights since Sept. 11, 2001, they testified Monday, children have spent more time at counseling than school. Parents, unable to sleep, spent hours in their children's rooms. A young widow gave up her fight against breast cancer. Another threw herself across her husband's grave.
Lost in the Dust of 9/11
October 14, 2006 | Ellen Barry, Times Staff Writer
There is no voice left in Manuel Checo's voice. He speaks in a granular rasp that fades, occasionally, to whispery puffs of air. Sometimes, for periods as long as two days, he is unable to speak at all. When that happens, Checo carries a pad of paper with him so he can scribble down notes if he needs something. But for the most part, he will simply disappear into his rented room, ignoring his cellphone when it rings.
More 9/11 remains found in manholes
October 22, 2006 | From Times Wire Reports
Workers recovered more human remains from several manholes as New York City began a new search for Sept. 11 victims. The search was ordered after the discovery of dozens of bones in an abandoned manhole last week. Utility and city officials on Saturday hand-removed material from other manholes after tearing into the pavement on a service road along the site's western edge. City officials said that about 15 more pieces of remains had been recovered.
2007
Sept. 11: A day to remember -- with a holiday?
January 25, 2009 | By Nicholas Riccardi
As he always does on Sept. 11, Ed Casso spent much of the day last year in his living room watching the solemn memorials on television. It had been precisely seven years since terrorists hijacked commercial jets and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Casso, 34, could feel the passage of time taking its toll. "Every year there's a little less coverage," he said. "Every year there's a little less feeling."
Bill honors 9/11 workers who fell ill
January 29, 2007 | From Times Wire Reports
The museum planned for ground zero should include a memorial to workers who died after becoming ill during cleanup of World Trade Center debris, two state lawmakers said, adding they would introduce state legislation to ensure those workers are recognized. "We want to tell the story of the 9/11 workers who rushed here to help put the city back on its feet, who got sick because they did that, and now unfortunately many of them have died," said Assemblyman Michael Gianaris.
Search shifts for remains of 9/11 victims
March 12, 2007 | From Associated Press
The search for remains of Sept. 11 victims has moved across the street from the former World Trade Center to the lot of a destroyed church, where important relics, including the bones of three saints, may also be buried. Since October, more than 400 bones have been unearthed from the debris of a service road that construction trucks used to get in and out of the site after the 2001 attacks.
9/11 Planner Confesses To Many Plots
March 15, 2007 | By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the Kuwaiti national who is thought to be the highest-ranking Al Qaeda operative in U.S. custody, told a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last weekend that he was responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to a transcript of the hearing.
U.S. public may be his target audience
March 16, 2007 | By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer
The most revealing aspect of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's testimony before a military tribunal may not have been the details about the many Al Qaeda plots he claims to have orchestrated but the insight it offered into the suspected Sept. 11 mastermind. In an hourlong written and oral presentation to his military captors Saturday, Mohammed showed himself to be ambitious, boastful and, when given the chance, talkative. He was even thoughtful about his cause and his craft.
New York mayor seeks aid for 9/11 responders
March 22, 2007 | By Louise Radnofsky, Newsday
New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Wednesday urged a Senate panel to reopen the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund for sick ground zero responders and said the city needed $150 million each year to continue to treat them. Thousands of the 50,000 rescue and recovery workers are being monitored and treated for serious respiratory illnesses at special clinics in New York City, Long Island and New Jersey.
New tribunal system gets its first case
March 26, 2007 | By Carol J. Williams, Times Staff Writer
As the newly reconstituted U.S. military trial system takes up its first case today with the arraignment of Australian terrorism suspect David Hicks, a sense of deja vu prevails in the on-again, off-again effort to prosecute those accused of having a role in the Sept. 11 attacks. A ruling on the legitimacy of the tribunals is pending before the Supreme Court, which in June quashed an earlier system, calling it an abuse of President Bush's wartime powers.
9/11 suspect denies he served as paymaster
March 30, 2007 | By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer
A Saudi suspected of being the senior paymaster for the Sept. 11 attacks, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, has denied wiring money to the hijackers or knowing specifics of the plot, according to a transcript of his military commission hearing released Thursday. U.S. authorities, as well as the Sept. 11 commission that investigated the attacks, have long alleged that Hawsawi was a top lieutenant of plot mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, an Al Qaeda chieftain.
Investigation fills in blanks on how war groundwork was laid
April 6, 2007 | By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
Just four months after the Sept. 11 attacks, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz dashed off a memo to a senior Pentagon colleague, demanding action to identify connections between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda. "We don't seem to be making much progress pulling together intelligence on links between Iraq and Al Qaeda," Wolfowitz wrote in the Jan. 22, 2002, memo to Douglas J. Feith, the department's No. 3 official.
Giuliani foes plan to use 9/11 against him
April 8, 2007 | By Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writer
Many Americans know Rudolph W. Giuliani only from his performance in the smoke and ashes of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York -- a steely image that has propelled him atop the polls in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Now, some groups at the center of the 9/11 experience are laying aggressive plans to tarnish that image and undermine the central pillar of his candidacy. Officials from a national firefighters union, along with some relatives of Sept.
9/11 pane in church blessed
April 9, 2007 | From Reuters
A new stained glass window that includes an image of the World Trade Center attacks was blessed by a bishop Sunday in a cathedral here. The window at St. John's Cathedral is constructed of about 20 panes, each with representations of heaven and hell. The World Trade Center pane is at the bottom, with an image of the attack as an illustration of "hell on Earth," said artist Marc Mulders, its maker. It shows an airplane about to crash into one of the twin towers.
All politics aside in PBS series
April 9, 2007 | By Matea Gold, Times Staff Writer
"America at a Crossroads" did not get off to an auspicious start. From the beginning, the ambitious $20-million effort to examine the complexities of the post-Sept. 11 world through a series of documentaries -- an initiative of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the private nonprofit that distributes federal funds to public television and radio -- was greeted with skepticism.
2 key detainees deny terrorism
April 13, 2007 | By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer
Two men accused of being top Al Qaeda operatives have denied playing any role in the Sept. 11 attacks or other terrorist plots, and one of them has told U.S. military officials that he deserves leniency for providing "vital information" in the U.S.-led counter-terrorism campaign in the four years since his capture in Pakistan. U.S. authorities accuse Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, of being a close associate of Sept.
Cruise assists 9/11 workers
April 20, 2007 | From the Associated Press
Tom Cruise's latest effort isn't for the big screen. It's for the New York police officers, firefighters and paramedics of Sept. 11. Cruise was to appear Thursday at a private dinner in Manhattan to raise money for the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project, a program he co-founded in 2002. The program, based on principles developed by Scientology founder L.
Ground zero deaths could add to 9/11 toll
May 25, 2007 | From the Associated Press
Ground zero workers who died after breathing in toxic dust from the collapsed World Trade Center ought to be officially recognized as victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the workers' family members say. The official list of victims grew by one this week after the city agreed to include a New York attorney who died of lung disease months after the attack, confusing Sept. 11 family members about what distinguished this death from the scores of others attributed to the aftermath.
Ill ground zero workers say U.S. failed to help
May 26, 2007 | By Erika Hayasaki, Times Staff Writer
Two subjects of a new documentary film joined the chorus of voices determined to focus attention on people who have developed debilitating health problems after breathing toxic dust from the collapsed World Trade Center towers. William Maher and John Graham traveled to Cuba as part of "Sicko," a documentary on the U.S. healthcare system by filmmaker Michael Moore. He brought the men, who had helped clean Lower Manhattan, to Cuba to try to get medical treatment for them at the U.S.
Cancer reported in some Sept. 11 first responders
June 1, 2007 | By Delthia Ricks, Newsday
Some of the first responders who were exposed to the cocktail of toxins produced at the World Trade Center collapse are developing a form of cancer often seen in much older people, in what one doctor calls the "third wave" of disorders to emerge from the Sept. 11 disaster. Dr. Robin Herbert, codirector of the WTC Medical Monitoring Program at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, said a wide range of medical conditions had been detected since the program began in 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Accounts of 9/11 air defended
June 26, 2007 | By Claudia Lauer, Times Staff Writer
Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, appearing Monday before a House subcommittee, denounced as "downright falsehoods" criticism of her statements following the Sept. 11 attacks that the air quality in areas around the World Trade Center site was safe for workers and residents.
Hunt still on for 9/11 remains
July 4, 2007 | From the Associated Press
A goal to end the search for human remains at the World Trade Center site by the fall is not realistic, and the effort will continue "for the foreseeable future," a city official said Tuesday. The city medical examiner's office will maintain a presence at the site indefinitely while construction continues in case excavations unearth more human remains, Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler said in a memo to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
World Trade Center victim's remains identified
July 26, 2007 | From Newsday
The New York City medical examiner has identified the remains of another victim among more than 1,100 people who died at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, but whose bodies had not been found. The medical examiner Tuesday announced that the remains found in a Con Edison manhole at ground zero in October were those of Edward Ryan, 42, of Scarsdale, N.Y. Ryan was first vice president of Carr Futures Inc.
Bloomberg reaches deal with 9/11 kin
August 10, 2007 | By Karla Shuster, Newsday
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and a coalition of relatives of Sept. 11 victims reached a compromise Thursday that would allow them to briefly descend into a small section of the former World Trade Center site, which the city previously had said was unsafe for the annual memorial.
Manhattan blaze recalls 9/11
August 19, 2007 | By Matthew Chayes, Newsday
Two New York firefighters died Saturday battling a major blaze at the former Deutsche Bank building just south of ground zero, in a haunting scene in Lower Manhattan reminiscent of Sept. 11, officials said. "Our city has worked hard to recover from that awful day in September almost six years ago, and today's sad events extend the sacrifice that this fire department has made," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said at a news conference at a downtown hospital, where firefighters gathered.
'Systemic breakdown' at CIA before Sept. 11
August 22, 2007 | By Greg Miller and Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writers
The CIA never developed an overall strategy for confronting Al Qaeda and let precious resources and capabilities go unused in the years leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, according to an internal investigation that the agency had fought to keep secret for the last two years. The report from the agency's inspector general, declassified Tuesday, adds disturbing new details to an already extensive public record of Sept. 11-related failures.
Study sees lingering effects of 9/11
August 30, 2007 | From Newsday
One in eight recovery and rescue workers who helped with the months-long cleanup at the World Trade Center showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a study has found. Workers with little or no experience with disasters showed the highest frequency of PTSD, said the study, published Wednesday in the American Journal of Psychiatry. The data come from the World Trade Center Health Registry's survey of 28,000 workers in 2003 and 2004.
Asthma up among 9/11 workers
September 3, 2007 | From Times Wire Reports
A new survey of Sept. 11-related illnesses has found an alarming increase in asthma -- 12 times higher than normal -- among those who toiled on the toxic debris piles of ground zero. The study was released Monday by the New York City Department of Health, based on responses gathered by the World Trade Center Health Registry. The data show 3.
He said yes to sacrificing life
September 11, 2007 | By Larry McShane, Associated Press
SECAUCUS, N.J. -- Kelly Ann Lynch, like so many others in Father Mychal Judge's vast congregation without walls, was devastated by word of the fire chaplain's death in the shadows of the World Trade Center. "Those first few weeks, it was hard to see anything good," said the Pennsylvania mother of four. "It just felt so dark and so sad and so empty." Time passed, until the darkness gave way to a bright idea.
A mother never forgets
September 12, 2007 | By Erika Hayasaki, Times Staff Writer
Sitting in a chair just after 7:30 a.m., beneath the amber glow of a hallway light, Carol Ashley leans over and ties the laces on an old pair of sneakers. She slips her good shoes into her purse. She knows it will be muddy in the pit. Outside, the sky is gray and rain slaps her windows. Six years ago on a Tuesday morning nothing like this one, Ashley's 25-year-old daughter, Janice, stood in this hallway wearing a taupe dress suit, a silver watch and her great-grandmother's pearl earrings.
9/11 hijacker lauded in video
September 12, 2007 | From Times Wire Reports
Osama bin Laden praised one of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers in a video marking the sixth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Al Qaeda usually issues a video on the anniversary. This year's video showed hijacker Waleed Alshehri threatening the U.S.
14 suits over 9/11 attacks settled a week before trial
September 18, 2007 | From Times Wire Services
The plaintiffs in more than a third of the remaining suits filed by relatives of Sept. 11 victims, seeking compensation from airlines and their security contractors, have agreed to settle a week before the first case was to go to trial. Fourteen of 35 remaining cases were settled, including a case filed by the wife of Patrick Driscoll, who died aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. That was to be the first case to go to trial and was to start Monday.
Trials tested Muslim's faith in America
September 23, 2007 | By H.G. Reza, Times Staff Writer
Managing a furniture store is not what Osama Awadallah had his sights on during college. But selling couches and dressers will do until an offer to develop computer information systems comes along. His job opportunities are limited, he said, because of the notoriety from his friendship with two 9/11 hijackers. He was one of the hundreds of Muslim men jailed as material witnesses in the 9/11 investigation.
Drugs, not 9/11 dust, cited in officer's death
October 26, 2007 | From Newsday
The death of New York police Det. James Zadroga, which was previously linked to his work in the rubble of the World Trade Center, was caused by injections of ground-up pills, the city medical examiner's office said Thursday. "What caused the disease was the injection of the drugs into his bloodstream, as opposed to something he breathed," said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch. The ruling outraged the family of Zadroga, 34, who became a symbol of post-Sept.
Another ID made from 9/11 remains
November 17, 2007 | From the Associated Press
A second Sept. 11 victim has been identified from human remains found underneath a service road at the World Trade Center site, officials said Friday. More than 400 human bone pieces have been recovered from beneath the service road that carried cleanup and construction trucks in and out of the site after the 2001 terrorist attacks. The search at the spot began in October 2006 when utility workers found more than 80 bones in a manhole in the service road.
Flip side of 9/11 for Giuliani
November 20, 2007 | From Newsday
Rudolph W. Giuliani's image as 9/11 mayor took a double hit Monday as he lost a key endorsement from the Sept. 11 commission chair to a rival, and New York firefighters and families of victims of the terrorist attacks took their campaign against him to New Hampshire. Adding to the bad news for Giuliani was a new poll showing that his support in New Hampshire dropped from 24% of GOP voters in September to 16% this month as Mitt Romney widened his from 25% to 33%.
Destroyed tapes could put CIA in legal tangles
December 11, 2007 | By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer
In reconstructing the events leading up to Sept. 11, 2001, the blue-ribbon commission investigating the terrorist attacks got a lot of help from the CIA. The agency summarized intelligence reports about interrogations of suspects and even agreed to pose the commission's questions to detainees. But the agency strictly prohibited personal contact with the detainees, even though the panel thought that seeing how they responded would help determine their credibility.
Search for remains ends at 9/11 site
December 12, 2007 | From Times Wire Reports
The expanded search for human remains at the former World Trade Center site is over for now. Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler, in a memo to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, said that the city Medical Examiner's Office had finished sifting the last of nearly 15,000 cubic yards of material excavated since the renewed search for remains began in October 2006. As a result, the city will shut down a Brooklyn facility it opened last December to analyze the remains.
The chinks in his 9/11 armor
January 24, 2008 | By Stephen Braun Times Staff Writer
On Sept. 11, 2001, Rudolph W. Giuliani emerged from the ash plumes of the ruined World Trade Center as much an icon as the fallen towers. His drawn face was coated in concrete dust. His painstaking words were freighted with the unimaginable. "There were so many people around, so many problems," Giuliani recalled in his autobiography. The counting of the dead had not begun, and he had to publicly reckon with the disaster's human toll.
Stubborn doubts on 9/11 trials
February 12, 2008 | By Peter Spiegel and David G. Savage, Times Staff Writers
The Defense Department had an eye on history Monday when it announced capital murder and war crimes charges against six detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying the alleged Sept. 11 plotters would be given an "extraordinary set of rights" when they go on trial. They will receive more rights than the top Nazis tried at Nuremberg, military officials pointed out, and far more than the plotters in the assassination of President Lincoln, who were hanged within three months.
9/11 suspects may face death penalty
February 12, 2008 | By Carol J. Williams
The Pentagon announced Monday that it was seeking the death penalty against alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and five other men, in a move that will probably ensure that the controversial military commissions at the Guantanamo Bay prison live on into the next presidential administration.
September 12, 2001 | By MAGGIE FARLEY and MATEA GOLD, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
In the worst terrorist attack ever against the United States, hijackers struck at the preeminent symbols of the nation's wealth and might Tuesday, flying airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and killing or injuring thousands of people. As a horrified nation watched on television, the twin towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan collapsed into flaming rubble after two Boeing 767s rammed their upper stories.
U.S. Command Takes Wing Amid Chaos
September 12, 2001 | EDWIN CHEN and ESTHER SCHRADER, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
In the minutes and hours after hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the president's whereabouts were kept secret, his words short and his movements seemingly erratic. Vice President Dick Cheney was in a command bunker underneath the White House within 15 minutes of the attacks. Defense Secretary Donald H.
Local Firms Brace for a Slowdown
September 14, 2001 | By LESLIE EARNEST and JAMES GRANELLI, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
With no games to show on its 64 televisions and four big screens, the National Sports Grill in Orange told two-thirds of its weekend staff to stay home. The banquet halls on the Queen Mary won't be packed this weekend either. Already, two big business gatherings, the Latino Beach Festival and a wedding, were called off. It's the "uncertainty and the national neurosis," said Jeff King of King's Seafood Co.
Fed Again Boosts Economy's Liquidity
September 15, 2001 | By PETER G. GOSSELIN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
The Federal Reserve pumped massive amounts of extra cash into the American economy Friday and arranged for huge dollar swaps with the central banks of Canada and England as it prepared for the reopening of U.S. financial markets in the wake of Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Fed provided banks and investment dealers more than $80 billion in short-term loans for use over the weekend by individuals and companies caught short by the chaos of the attacks.
At Union Square, a Family's Pain Surpasses Politics
September 16, 2001 | By STEVE LOPEZ
On the fourth day, the park at Union Square in lower Manhattan became a sanctuary for those trying to move on and those who can't let go. Those who live in penthouse suites and those who sleep in the bushes. The peaceniks came, and the saber rattlers too. Buddhists prayed on the lawn, a street preacher shook a fist at the blue September sky, a Korean priest led a hymn. And the McCloskeys of Indiana came to light a candle for daughter and sister Katie Marie.
Last Soldier to Leave Vietnam Is Feared Dead
September 16, 2001 | RICHARD T. COOPER and ROBERT A. ROSENBLATT, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
He was last in the line moving up the ramp into a waiting C-130 at Tan Son Nhut air base--a tall, husky man with an open Midwestern face who was about to step into history. It was March 29, 1973, in Saigon. And Master Sgt. Max Beilke was officially designated as the last American combat soldier to leave Vietnam. He had survived two wars, Korea and Vietnam. Now he was going home to his family in Minnesota.
You're on the 87th Floor, and Something's Terribly Wrong . . .
September 16, 2001 | By SCOTT GOLD, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Adam Mayblum enjoyed the storms that rumbled off the Atlantic. As they lashed his windows and strafed the steel beams, Adam would scoff: You think that's power? I'm on the 87th floor of the World Trade Center. That's power. During the worst storms, the cords on his window shades would appear to sway a few inches, but it was an illusion. They actually hung straight, held steady by gravity. It was the tower that swayed, to absorb the weather.
Terrorism Can't Defeat Heroism
September 16, 2001 | By Diane Pucin
The little park on the corner of 35th Street and Second Avenue holds two basketball courts, two handball courts and a couple of benches. On Wednesday afternoon, pick-up basketball games were played on both courts. Four men each were on the handball courts. Two older men sat on one of the benches. Joseph Leslie, 80, a World War II veteran, and his best friend, Jerome Goldman, 81, remarked on the talents of one of the young men who had just dunked a basketball.
Workers' Hope Starts to Fade With Time
September 16, 2001 | By CHARLES ORNSTEIN and DAVID ZUCCHINO, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
On day five of New York's state of siege, as three fallen fire chiefs were lowered into their graves, something changed in the minds of some of the men digging into the earth at ground zero. They did not yet give up hope, but they began to fear the moment when hope will die. It was a subtle shift, like the thought that struck Rich Nappi as he tore with his hands at the debris of the World Trade Center on Saturday morning.
Two Friends, Two Doomed Flights
September 16, 2001 | JOE MATHEWS, TIMES STAFF WRITER
You may think of it as the strangest collision in the strangest week in American memory. You might call it the deadly serendipity of circumstances, an incredible freak of science and mathematics and airline schedules, or the terrible collateral of terrorist carnage. Ruth Clifford McCourt and Paige Farley Hackel would say you were wrong to think of their story as random--if only they were still here to tell it. McCourt and Hackel were best friends for more than a decade.
Yemenis Also Died in Attack
September 17, 2001 | By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Among the nearly 5,000 missing in the World Trade Center attack are dozens--maybe even hundreds--of victims from Yemen, the ancestral home of prime suspect Osama bin Laden. The losses have been especially heavy to bear because many Yemeni Americans and Muslim Americans have been fearful of mourning in public--and shamed by any connection, however tenuous, to Bin Laden. This weekend, 22-year-old Yemeni immigrant Rabyaah Althaibani was asked to attend a vigil in Manhattan.
Eureka Feels Empathy for New York
September 17, 2001 | By JOHN M. GLIONNA, TIMES STAFF WRITER
This fog-shrouded fishing and logging town flanked by 100-year-old redwoods stands in deep contrast to the concrete canyons of midtown Manhattan a continent away. Yet residents say that last week's World Trade Center tragedy has made them all feel like New Yorkers. "That Manhattan skyline is as familiar to many people here as their own hometown," said Cliff Berkowitz, program manager at a local radio station.
Southwest Resuming TV Campaign With 2 Ads
September 19, 2001 | By GREG JOHNSON, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Southwest Airlines, which quickly returned to full service after last week's terrorist attacks, tonight will reinstate television advertising with a pair of new commercials, the company said Tuesday. Southwest is believed to be the first major U.S. airline to reinstate advertising of its service since the attacks. United Airlines, American Airlines and other major carriers have yet to say when they will resume advertising campaigns, which were halted immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Taliban Rejects Bush Ultimatum
September 22, 2001 | TYLER MARSHALL and NORMAN KEMPSTER, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban rejected President Bush's ultimatum Friday, vowing to continue to protect Osama bin Laden and his terrorist followers even if that provokes a war and the destruction of the regime.
Heroic Firefighter Is Alive--and Still on the Job
September 22, 2001 | DAVID ZUCCHINO, TIMES STAFF WRITER
In the photo, sweaty young Mike Kehoe is headed up--all the way up a smoky stairwell in the north tower of the World Trade Center just after 9 a.m. on Sept. 11. Kehoe wasn't aware that someone was taking his photograph at that particular moment. He's a firefighter. His mind was focused on hustling all the way up the tower and evacuating office workers. "Civilians," as he calls them.
A New View of High-Rise Firefighting
September 24, 2001 | By DOUG SMITH and STEVE BERRY and MITCHELL LANDSBERG, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
Modern firefighting and rescue, built upon hard lessons from deadly disasters going back more than a century, had two fundamental beliefs shattered in the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. For firefighters, the rule for saving lives and property in a burning high-rise is to attack the fire from inside the building. At least 300 men performing that duty on Sept. 11 are presumed dead. For high-rise workers, the rule is to stay put until told to evacuate.
When Anton Met Anthony
September 27, 2001 | By SUSAN KING, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Anton Yelchin is trying to hold back his tears. But it's a losing battle. His blue eyes well up. His voice cracks. The 12-year-old has been reeling with pain and fear since the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon and he wants to get his feelings off his chest. "I can't believe somebody would do something to our country," says Yelchin, shaking his head in disbelief. "I am really proud to live here. I am proud to live in a country where people love their country so much.
N.Y. Job Fair Draws the Displaced, Dispirited
October 18, 2001 | By THOMAS S. MULLIGAN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
A well-dressed crowd of at least 10,000, many brandishing resumes and business cards, descended on Madison Square Garden on Wednesday for a one-day job fair aimed at workers displaced by the World Trade Center attacks. Police turned away thousands as the throng grew to nearly twice the expected size and encircled the landmark Midtown arena.
Manhattan Neighbors Plan to 'Rely on the Local Folks'
October 26, 2001 | By GERALDINE BAUM, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Lately, nobody has been immune to the sadness here. But last week, the boisterous New York was back--for one night at least. About 500 people spilled out onto the streets around Daddy-O, a Greenwich Village bar, to benefit the neighborhood firehouse, which lost 11 firefighters when the towers of the World Trade Center disintegrated. Similar benefits are taking place at restaurants and bars all over the city.
Those Who Seized the Moment
November 22, 2001 | By RICHARD MAROSI and MEGAN GARVEY, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
The bumper stickers are just beginning to appear. "Flight 93," they read. "Let's roll!" The same phrase capped President Bush's speech to the nation earlier this month--the words of a passenger on a doomed jetliner symbolizing the nation's resolve. There have been television documentaries about Flight 93. A book is reportedly in the works. Near rural Shanksville, Pa.
Widow Moved by Outpouring of Generosity
December 23, 2001 | K. CONNIE KANG, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Sheila Marie Ornedo, heavy with child, is due to give birth in February. The Los Angeles nurse is alone this Christmas, preparing for her baby girl's arrival without Ruben, her husband, by her side. Ruben is the one who should be massaging her aching back, as he used to; picking her up from work at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and taking her out to dinner, as he used to. He should be helping to fix up the nursery, as he was going to.
2002
Plans Moving Ahead for Redeveloping Trade Center Site
February 1, 2002 | By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF, TIMES ARCHITECTURE CRITIC
The developer who holds the lease to the World Trade Center property is completing the first comprehensive master plan for the 16-acre site that sources say would consist of a number of office buildings clustered around a single soaring tower, a memorial park and two cultural venues. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, one of New York City's most established firms, the plan will be presented by developer Larry Silverstein to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.
Teenager Takes Initiative to Aid Victims' Families
March 5, 2002 | By SUZIE ST. JOHN, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
More than most, Chris Finefrock felt compelled to do something to help the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The teenager who recently lived in the Conejo Valley worked last summer as an intern at the Los Angeles office of Cantor Fitzgerald, an institutional bond trading firm that had extensive offices in the World Trade Center's north tower. The firm lost about 700 of its 1,000 employees. "When I first heard about the planes crashing, I had this surreal feeling.
2 New Names on 9/11 Confirmed Dead List
May 26, 2002
Two new names, Michael Horn and Nitin Parandkar, were added in recent days to the list of confirmed dead in the terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center. This updates accountings that have appeared in The Times each Sunday since Sept. 11. The number of people unaccounted for, according to New York City officials and Associated Press, is now believed to be 115.
At West Point, New Breed of Cadet
June 1, 2002 | By JOHN HENDREN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
When President Bush today addresses the first students to graduate from West Point since Sept. 11, he will encounter a class of cadets who have flocked to a new course on terrorism and are clamoring to join the infantry. Their shifting interests underscore what is described as a new clarity of mission at the U.S.
Teachers Look for the Lessons of Sept. 11
September 6, 2002 | By ERIKA HAYASAKI and JOE MATHEWS, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
David Massey has given his students at Chatsworth High School an unusual weekend homework assignment. Find and tape television footage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and bring it to school for extra credit. The tapes will form the basis of a lesson Massey is planning for his advanced film and video studies class on Wednesday, the first anniversary of the deadly attack. "We'll look at the imagery of Sept.
Life Amid the Anguish of Loss
September 8, 2002 | By STEVE CHAWKINS, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Colleen Rastovich shuddered the other day when she heard a plane flying low over her toy-strewn east Ventura backyard. But the moment, like a million others since Sept. 11, passed. Rastovich was a continent away from the devastation of that day. But for her and a number of other people who live and work in Ventura County, it was as close as an empty chair at the dining room table, a dear friend never seen again, a riotous laugh never heard. For them, the shock and aftershocks of Sept.
Suliman Ali Baldo
September 11, 2002
Suliman Ali Baldo, 52, works in the Empire State Building as a researcher for Human Rights Watch. Baldo left Sudan seven years ago to escape intensifying harassment of critics of the government. At that time, Sudan was a haven for Osama bin Laden and locked in civil war, with radical Islam gaining influence. Because of Sept. 11, Sudan began to change, and Baldo is going home. * "On Sept. 11, I was here in the Empire State Building.
The Plots and Designs of Al Qaeda's Engineer
December 22, 2002 | By Terry McDermott, Josh Meyer and Patrick J. McDonnell, Times Staff Writers
Senior Pakistani and American intelligence officials say the operational commander of Al Qaeda, the man believed to have planned the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, narrowly avoided capture during a raid in which authorities took his two young sons into custody.
2003
European Investigators Follow Voyage of Stolen U.S. Passport
January 14, 2003 | By Sebastian Rotella, Times Staff Writer
On July 7, 1998, thieves snatched a passport from a car driven by a U.S. tourist here, a small rip-off that became a footnote in a major act of terrorism. The passport belonged to an Iranian American medical student from St. Louis. It made its way into the hands of Ramzi Binalshibh, an alleged coordinator of the Al Qaeda cell in Hamburg, Germany, that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.
Prelude to 9/11: A Hijacker's Love, Lies
January 27, 2003 | By Dirk Laabs and Terry McDermott, Special to The Times
The letter from the dead man did not surface for months after it was sent, after, presumably, Aysel Senguen had enough time to fully absorb the grim deeds and suicide death of her fiance, Ziad Jarrah. Ziad sent the letter and a package of personal belongings to Aysel from the United States on Sept. 10, 2001, a day before he and three comrades hijacked United Airlines Flight 93, set it on a heading for Washington, D.C.
Transcripts of 9/11 Calls Show Fear, Confusion
August 29, 2003 | By Josh Getlin and Robert Lee Hotz, Times Staff Writers
Minutes after an airplane slammed into the World Trade Center's north tower, the assistant general manager of Windows on the World made the first of her four emergency phone calls to police, frantically seeking a way to help scores of guests escape the 106th-floor restaurant. "We're getting no direction up here," said Christine Olender, who reported that smoke was filling the dining room. "The condition up on 106 is getting worse."
For Sept. 11's burn victims, a slow recovery
October 27, 2003 | Roni Rabin, Newsday
Harry Waizer talks in a whisper about getting back to work. His vocal cords were charred in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, possibly when he inhaled burning jet fuel, and now he is pondering how to put his extensive experience in corporate tax law to use, even though his voice is weak and he is distracted by pain. For Mary Jos, the ability to concentrate comes and goes.
2004
Silent witnesses to Sept. 11
July 1, 2004 | By Duane Noriyuki, Times Staff Writer
An unfathomable day is described in the simplest of terms -- a telephone, a squeegee handle, a pair of shoes. They are ordinary items that unexpectedly elicit the "quiet horror" of 9/11 in an exhibition opening today at the Japanese American National Museum. In all, 45 objects, as well as images and video, are included in "September 11: Bearing Witness to History," a Smithsonian traveling exhibition from the National Museum of American History. Each item has its own story to tell.
Tracking the Flights Hijacked on 9/11
June 18, 2004
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, United Airlines Flights 175 and 93 and American Airlines Flights 77 and 11 were hijacked by terrorists. As the attack unfolded, the flights were frantically tracked by air traffic controllers; the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA; and the Northeast Air Defense Sector, or NEADS, of the military's aerospace defense command. Following are excepts of the staff report on the events prepared for the commission investigating the attacks.
Payout to Victims of 9/11 Tops $38 Billion
November 9, 2004 | By Maggie Farley, Times Staff Writer
Victims of the Sept. 11 attacks received more than $38 billion in compensation -- a figure 30 times the size of the largest previous payout for a terrorism event and one that is unlikely to be matched, a Rand Corp. study released Monday said. Insurance companies and the federal government provided more than 90% of the payments, and some victims were overpaid while others fell through the cracks, according to the Santa Monica-based think tank.
2005
Predecessors Erred on Terrorism, Bush Says
September 23, 2005 | By Warren Vieth, Times Staff Writer
President Bush said Thursday that mistakes made by three of his predecessors, including the Reagan administration's restraint after the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, had emboldened terrorists and helped set the stage for the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush said he was determined not to repeat the pattern by pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq before the insurgency there is contained and Iraqi forces are able to provide adequate security.
2006
Agent Faults FBI on 9/11
March 21, 2006 | Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer
The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui weeks before Sept. 11 told a federal jury Monday that his own superiors were guilty of "criminal negligence and obstruction" for blocking his attempts to learn whether the terrorist was part of a larger cell about to hijack planes in the United States. During intense cross-examination, Special Agent Harry Samit -- a witness for the prosecution -- accused his bosses of acting only to protect their positions within the FBI.
High Turnout, Emotions for `United 93'
May 1, 2006 | By Josh Friedman, Times Staff Writer
Ever since Hollywood greenlighted the first feature film to dramatize the events of Sept. 11, 2001, the question has been asked: Will Americans be ready to see it? Last weekend, moviegoers indicated that the answer was yes. As "United 93," Universal Pictures' recounting of the passenger uprising aboard one of the hijacked jets, opened last weekend, moviegoers all over the country turned out -- if not in droves -- in strong numbers.
Moussaoui Starts Serving Life Sentence in Colorado
May 14, 2006 | From the Associated Press
Convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui began serving his life sentence at the nation's most secure prison on Saturday after U.S. marshals flew him overnight to southern Colorado from Virginia. Marshals brought Moussaoui before dawn to the Supermax federal prison, where he is to spend 23 hours a day in his cell and have little to no contact with other criminals at the facility. "He has now begun serving his sentence of life without the possibility of release," the U.S.
Moussaoui Jury Hears the Panic From 9/11
April 11, 2006 | By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer
For more than four years they had waited to walk into a courtroom and hold someone responsible for the wreckage of their lives. In the long days and nights since Sept. 11, 2001, they testified Monday, children have spent more time at counseling than school. Parents, unable to sleep, spent hours in their children's rooms. A young widow gave up her fight against breast cancer. Another threw herself across her husband's grave.
Lost in the Dust of 9/11
October 14, 2006 | Ellen Barry, Times Staff Writer
There is no voice left in Manuel Checo's voice. He speaks in a granular rasp that fades, occasionally, to whispery puffs of air. Sometimes, for periods as long as two days, he is unable to speak at all. When that happens, Checo carries a pad of paper with him so he can scribble down notes if he needs something. But for the most part, he will simply disappear into his rented room, ignoring his cellphone when it rings.
More 9/11 remains found in manholes
October 22, 2006 | From Times Wire Reports
Workers recovered more human remains from several manholes as New York City began a new search for Sept. 11 victims. The search was ordered after the discovery of dozens of bones in an abandoned manhole last week. Utility and city officials on Saturday hand-removed material from other manholes after tearing into the pavement on a service road along the site's western edge. City officials said that about 15 more pieces of remains had been recovered.
2007
Sept. 11: A day to remember -- with a holiday?
January 25, 2009 | By Nicholas Riccardi
As he always does on Sept. 11, Ed Casso spent much of the day last year in his living room watching the solemn memorials on television. It had been precisely seven years since terrorists hijacked commercial jets and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Casso, 34, could feel the passage of time taking its toll. "Every year there's a little less coverage," he said. "Every year there's a little less feeling."
Bill honors 9/11 workers who fell ill
January 29, 2007 | From Times Wire Reports
The museum planned for ground zero should include a memorial to workers who died after becoming ill during cleanup of World Trade Center debris, two state lawmakers said, adding they would introduce state legislation to ensure those workers are recognized. "We want to tell the story of the 9/11 workers who rushed here to help put the city back on its feet, who got sick because they did that, and now unfortunately many of them have died," said Assemblyman Michael Gianaris.
Search shifts for remains of 9/11 victims
March 12, 2007 | From Associated Press
The search for remains of Sept. 11 victims has moved across the street from the former World Trade Center to the lot of a destroyed church, where important relics, including the bones of three saints, may also be buried. Since October, more than 400 bones have been unearthed from the debris of a service road that construction trucks used to get in and out of the site after the 2001 attacks.
9/11 Planner Confesses To Many Plots
March 15, 2007 | By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the Kuwaiti national who is thought to be the highest-ranking Al Qaeda operative in U.S. custody, told a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last weekend that he was responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to a transcript of the hearing.
U.S. public may be his target audience
March 16, 2007 | By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer
The most revealing aspect of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's testimony before a military tribunal may not have been the details about the many Al Qaeda plots he claims to have orchestrated but the insight it offered into the suspected Sept. 11 mastermind. In an hourlong written and oral presentation to his military captors Saturday, Mohammed showed himself to be ambitious, boastful and, when given the chance, talkative. He was even thoughtful about his cause and his craft.
New York mayor seeks aid for 9/11 responders
March 22, 2007 | By Louise Radnofsky, Newsday
New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Wednesday urged a Senate panel to reopen the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund for sick ground zero responders and said the city needed $150 million each year to continue to treat them. Thousands of the 50,000 rescue and recovery workers are being monitored and treated for serious respiratory illnesses at special clinics in New York City, Long Island and New Jersey.
New tribunal system gets its first case
March 26, 2007 | By Carol J. Williams, Times Staff Writer
As the newly reconstituted U.S. military trial system takes up its first case today with the arraignment of Australian terrorism suspect David Hicks, a sense of deja vu prevails in the on-again, off-again effort to prosecute those accused of having a role in the Sept. 11 attacks. A ruling on the legitimacy of the tribunals is pending before the Supreme Court, which in June quashed an earlier system, calling it an abuse of President Bush's wartime powers.
9/11 suspect denies he served as paymaster
March 30, 2007 | By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer
A Saudi suspected of being the senior paymaster for the Sept. 11 attacks, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, has denied wiring money to the hijackers or knowing specifics of the plot, according to a transcript of his military commission hearing released Thursday. U.S. authorities, as well as the Sept. 11 commission that investigated the attacks, have long alleged that Hawsawi was a top lieutenant of plot mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, an Al Qaeda chieftain.
Investigation fills in blanks on how war groundwork was laid
April 6, 2007 | By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
Just four months after the Sept. 11 attacks, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz dashed off a memo to a senior Pentagon colleague, demanding action to identify connections between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda. "We don't seem to be making much progress pulling together intelligence on links between Iraq and Al Qaeda," Wolfowitz wrote in the Jan. 22, 2002, memo to Douglas J. Feith, the department's No. 3 official.
Giuliani foes plan to use 9/11 against him
April 8, 2007 | By Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writer
Many Americans know Rudolph W. Giuliani only from his performance in the smoke and ashes of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York -- a steely image that has propelled him atop the polls in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Now, some groups at the center of the 9/11 experience are laying aggressive plans to tarnish that image and undermine the central pillar of his candidacy. Officials from a national firefighters union, along with some relatives of Sept.
9/11 pane in church blessed
April 9, 2007 | From Reuters
A new stained glass window that includes an image of the World Trade Center attacks was blessed by a bishop Sunday in a cathedral here. The window at St. John's Cathedral is constructed of about 20 panes, each with representations of heaven and hell. The World Trade Center pane is at the bottom, with an image of the attack as an illustration of "hell on Earth," said artist Marc Mulders, its maker. It shows an airplane about to crash into one of the twin towers.
All politics aside in PBS series
April 9, 2007 | By Matea Gold, Times Staff Writer
"America at a Crossroads" did not get off to an auspicious start. From the beginning, the ambitious $20-million effort to examine the complexities of the post-Sept. 11 world through a series of documentaries -- an initiative of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the private nonprofit that distributes federal funds to public television and radio -- was greeted with skepticism.
2 key detainees deny terrorism
April 13, 2007 | By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer
Two men accused of being top Al Qaeda operatives have denied playing any role in the Sept. 11 attacks or other terrorist plots, and one of them has told U.S. military officials that he deserves leniency for providing "vital information" in the U.S.-led counter-terrorism campaign in the four years since his capture in Pakistan. U.S. authorities accuse Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, of being a close associate of Sept.
Cruise assists 9/11 workers
April 20, 2007 | From the Associated Press
Tom Cruise's latest effort isn't for the big screen. It's for the New York police officers, firefighters and paramedics of Sept. 11. Cruise was to appear Thursday at a private dinner in Manhattan to raise money for the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project, a program he co-founded in 2002. The program, based on principles developed by Scientology founder L.
Ground zero deaths could add to 9/11 toll
May 25, 2007 | From the Associated Press
Ground zero workers who died after breathing in toxic dust from the collapsed World Trade Center ought to be officially recognized as victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the workers' family members say. The official list of victims grew by one this week after the city agreed to include a New York attorney who died of lung disease months after the attack, confusing Sept. 11 family members about what distinguished this death from the scores of others attributed to the aftermath.
Ill ground zero workers say U.S. failed to help
May 26, 2007 | By Erika Hayasaki, Times Staff Writer
Two subjects of a new documentary film joined the chorus of voices determined to focus attention on people who have developed debilitating health problems after breathing toxic dust from the collapsed World Trade Center towers. William Maher and John Graham traveled to Cuba as part of "Sicko," a documentary on the U.S. healthcare system by filmmaker Michael Moore. He brought the men, who had helped clean Lower Manhattan, to Cuba to try to get medical treatment for them at the U.S.
Cancer reported in some Sept. 11 first responders
June 1, 2007 | By Delthia Ricks, Newsday
Some of the first responders who were exposed to the cocktail of toxins produced at the World Trade Center collapse are developing a form of cancer often seen in much older people, in what one doctor calls the "third wave" of disorders to emerge from the Sept. 11 disaster. Dr. Robin Herbert, codirector of the WTC Medical Monitoring Program at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, said a wide range of medical conditions had been detected since the program began in 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Accounts of 9/11 air defended
June 26, 2007 | By Claudia Lauer, Times Staff Writer
Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, appearing Monday before a House subcommittee, denounced as "downright falsehoods" criticism of her statements following the Sept. 11 attacks that the air quality in areas around the World Trade Center site was safe for workers and residents.
Hunt still on for 9/11 remains
July 4, 2007 | From the Associated Press
A goal to end the search for human remains at the World Trade Center site by the fall is not realistic, and the effort will continue "for the foreseeable future," a city official said Tuesday. The city medical examiner's office will maintain a presence at the site indefinitely while construction continues in case excavations unearth more human remains, Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler said in a memo to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
World Trade Center victim's remains identified
July 26, 2007 | From Newsday
The New York City medical examiner has identified the remains of another victim among more than 1,100 people who died at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, but whose bodies had not been found. The medical examiner Tuesday announced that the remains found in a Con Edison manhole at ground zero in October were those of Edward Ryan, 42, of Scarsdale, N.Y. Ryan was first vice president of Carr Futures Inc.
Bloomberg reaches deal with 9/11 kin
August 10, 2007 | By Karla Shuster, Newsday
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and a coalition of relatives of Sept. 11 victims reached a compromise Thursday that would allow them to briefly descend into a small section of the former World Trade Center site, which the city previously had said was unsafe for the annual memorial.
Manhattan blaze recalls 9/11
August 19, 2007 | By Matthew Chayes, Newsday
Two New York firefighters died Saturday battling a major blaze at the former Deutsche Bank building just south of ground zero, in a haunting scene in Lower Manhattan reminiscent of Sept. 11, officials said. "Our city has worked hard to recover from that awful day in September almost six years ago, and today's sad events extend the sacrifice that this fire department has made," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said at a news conference at a downtown hospital, where firefighters gathered.
'Systemic breakdown' at CIA before Sept. 11
August 22, 2007 | By Greg Miller and Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writers
The CIA never developed an overall strategy for confronting Al Qaeda and let precious resources and capabilities go unused in the years leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, according to an internal investigation that the agency had fought to keep secret for the last two years. The report from the agency's inspector general, declassified Tuesday, adds disturbing new details to an already extensive public record of Sept. 11-related failures.
Study sees lingering effects of 9/11
August 30, 2007 | From Newsday
One in eight recovery and rescue workers who helped with the months-long cleanup at the World Trade Center showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a study has found. Workers with little or no experience with disasters showed the highest frequency of PTSD, said the study, published Wednesday in the American Journal of Psychiatry. The data come from the World Trade Center Health Registry's survey of 28,000 workers in 2003 and 2004.
Asthma up among 9/11 workers
September 3, 2007 | From Times Wire Reports
A new survey of Sept. 11-related illnesses has found an alarming increase in asthma -- 12 times higher than normal -- among those who toiled on the toxic debris piles of ground zero. The study was released Monday by the New York City Department of Health, based on responses gathered by the World Trade Center Health Registry. The data show 3.
He said yes to sacrificing life
September 11, 2007 | By Larry McShane, Associated Press
SECAUCUS, N.J. -- Kelly Ann Lynch, like so many others in Father Mychal Judge's vast congregation without walls, was devastated by word of the fire chaplain's death in the shadows of the World Trade Center. "Those first few weeks, it was hard to see anything good," said the Pennsylvania mother of four. "It just felt so dark and so sad and so empty." Time passed, until the darkness gave way to a bright idea.
A mother never forgets
September 12, 2007 | By Erika Hayasaki, Times Staff Writer
Sitting in a chair just after 7:30 a.m., beneath the amber glow of a hallway light, Carol Ashley leans over and ties the laces on an old pair of sneakers. She slips her good shoes into her purse. She knows it will be muddy in the pit. Outside, the sky is gray and rain slaps her windows. Six years ago on a Tuesday morning nothing like this one, Ashley's 25-year-old daughter, Janice, stood in this hallway wearing a taupe dress suit, a silver watch and her great-grandmother's pearl earrings.
9/11 hijacker lauded in video
September 12, 2007 | From Times Wire Reports
Osama bin Laden praised one of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers in a video marking the sixth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Al Qaeda usually issues a video on the anniversary. This year's video showed hijacker Waleed Alshehri threatening the U.S.
14 suits over 9/11 attacks settled a week before trial
September 18, 2007 | From Times Wire Services
The plaintiffs in more than a third of the remaining suits filed by relatives of Sept. 11 victims, seeking compensation from airlines and their security contractors, have agreed to settle a week before the first case was to go to trial. Fourteen of 35 remaining cases were settled, including a case filed by the wife of Patrick Driscoll, who died aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. That was to be the first case to go to trial and was to start Monday.
Trials tested Muslim's faith in America
September 23, 2007 | By H.G. Reza, Times Staff Writer
Managing a furniture store is not what Osama Awadallah had his sights on during college. But selling couches and dressers will do until an offer to develop computer information systems comes along. His job opportunities are limited, he said, because of the notoriety from his friendship with two 9/11 hijackers. He was one of the hundreds of Muslim men jailed as material witnesses in the 9/11 investigation.
Drugs, not 9/11 dust, cited in officer's death
October 26, 2007 | From Newsday
The death of New York police Det. James Zadroga, which was previously linked to his work in the rubble of the World Trade Center, was caused by injections of ground-up pills, the city medical examiner's office said Thursday. "What caused the disease was the injection of the drugs into his bloodstream, as opposed to something he breathed," said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch. The ruling outraged the family of Zadroga, 34, who became a symbol of post-Sept.
Another ID made from 9/11 remains
November 17, 2007 | From the Associated Press
A second Sept. 11 victim has been identified from human remains found underneath a service road at the World Trade Center site, officials said Friday. More than 400 human bone pieces have been recovered from beneath the service road that carried cleanup and construction trucks in and out of the site after the 2001 terrorist attacks. The search at the spot began in October 2006 when utility workers found more than 80 bones in a manhole in the service road.
Flip side of 9/11 for Giuliani
November 20, 2007 | From Newsday
Rudolph W. Giuliani's image as 9/11 mayor took a double hit Monday as he lost a key endorsement from the Sept. 11 commission chair to a rival, and New York firefighters and families of victims of the terrorist attacks took their campaign against him to New Hampshire. Adding to the bad news for Giuliani was a new poll showing that his support in New Hampshire dropped from 24% of GOP voters in September to 16% this month as Mitt Romney widened his from 25% to 33%.
Destroyed tapes could put CIA in legal tangles
December 11, 2007 | By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer
In reconstructing the events leading up to Sept. 11, 2001, the blue-ribbon commission investigating the terrorist attacks got a lot of help from the CIA. The agency summarized intelligence reports about interrogations of suspects and even agreed to pose the commission's questions to detainees. But the agency strictly prohibited personal contact with the detainees, even though the panel thought that seeing how they responded would help determine their credibility.
Search for remains ends at 9/11 site
December 12, 2007 | From Times Wire Reports
The expanded search for human remains at the former World Trade Center site is over for now. Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler, in a memo to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, said that the city Medical Examiner's Office had finished sifting the last of nearly 15,000 cubic yards of material excavated since the renewed search for remains began in October 2006. As a result, the city will shut down a Brooklyn facility it opened last December to analyze the remains.
2008
The chinks in his 9/11 armor
January 24, 2008 | By Stephen Braun Times Staff Writer
On Sept. 11, 2001, Rudolph W. Giuliani emerged from the ash plumes of the ruined World Trade Center as much an icon as the fallen towers. His drawn face was coated in concrete dust. His painstaking words were freighted with the unimaginable. "There were so many people around, so many problems," Giuliani recalled in his autobiography. The counting of the dead had not begun, and he had to publicly reckon with the disaster's human toll.
Stubborn doubts on 9/11 trials
February 12, 2008 | By Peter Spiegel and David G. Savage, Times Staff Writers
The Defense Department had an eye on history Monday when it announced capital murder and war crimes charges against six detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying the alleged Sept. 11 plotters would be given an "extraordinary set of rights" when they go on trial. They will receive more rights than the top Nazis tried at Nuremberg, military officials pointed out, and far more than the plotters in the assassination of President Lincoln, who were hanged within three months.
9/11 suspects may face death penalty
February 12, 2008 | By Carol J. Williams
The Pentagon announced Monday that it was seeking the death penalty against alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and five other men, in a move that will probably ensure that the controversial military commissions at the Guantanamo Bay prison live on into the next presidential administration.
French museum to revisit Sept. 11 in a big way
April 11, 2008 | By Geraldine Baum, Times Staff Writer
On the shores of Normandy where thousands of Americans died in the cataclysm that was D-day, a museum that aims at being more than a collection of rusting relics is preparing to commemorate another day that changed the world: Sept. 11, 2001. More than 120 mementos, including building keys and a smashed-up vehicle, are being shipped from New York to the French city of Caen for the first exhibition outside the United States, and the largest anywhere on the attack, its roots and aftermath.
Defending 'the most hated man in the world'
May 25, 2008 | Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer
They make an unlikely pair, the world's most notorious captured terrorist and the Navy captain assigned to defend him against war-crimes charges that could lead to his execution. But together, the two men are quietly embarking on a legal odyssey that could last years, and may ultimately help define the constitutional parameters of the United States' role in the global war on terrorism.
A bizarre first day in court
June 6, 2008 | By Carol J. Williams,Times Staff Writer
As Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his four codefendants made their first court appearance to face charges in the Sept. 11 attacks, journalists watched from behind a soundproof glass wall and listened to an audio feed with a 20-second delay. The tribunal's chief judge ordered the delay in the audio to guard against any accidental disclosure of classified information as the terrorism suspects face prosecution. Marine Col. Ralph H.
Judge urges 9/11 suspects to accept legal help
July 10, 2008 | By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer
A military judge Wednesday strongly advised two accused co-conspirators in the Sept. 11 attacks not to represent themselves in their upcoming trial because their defense would suffer from several factors, including a lack of access to the classified evidence that the government plans to use against them. "It would be best for you to accept the assistance of counsel. If it sounds as if I am trying to talk you out of representing yourself, that would be accurate," Judge Ralph H.
Guantanamo jurors shown graphic film on Al Qaeda
July 29, 2008 | By Carol J. Williams, Times Staff Writer
Jurors hearing the first war crimes case against a Guantanamo prisoner watched a graphic 90-minute film chronicling the history of Al Qaeda on Monday, which included footage of mangled corpses in the rubble of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing in Kenya. The disturbing images, including some not previously released by U.S. authorities, were part of a film produced and narrated by a prosecution witness under contract with the tribunal hierarchy, the Office of Military Commissions.
A nation bows its head in silence
September 12, 2008 | By Cynthia Dizikes and Johanna Neuman, Times Staff Writers
The nearly 3,000 people who died when hijackers commandeered four passenger jets on Sept. 11, 2001, were remembered Thursday as President Bush dedicated the first national memorial to the victims and the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates came together in a moment of silence. In a ceremony at the Pentagon, where 184 people were killed, Bush recalled how the "doomed airliner plunged from the sky, split the rock and steel of this building and changed our world forever."
Judge gets help of Sept. 11 suspects
September 23, 2008 | By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer
A military judge Monday enlisted the help of self-described Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in coaxing a man accused as a co-conspirator out of his detention cell here so the controversial trial into the attacks on New York and Washington can proceed. After a long day of procedural wrangling, Marine Col. Ralph H. Kohlmann ordered Ramzi Binalshibh to be "extracted" from his cell by force if necessary and brought into the military commission courtroom at the U.S.
Sept. 11 plotter turns tables on judge
September 24, 2008 | By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer
The world's most notorious jailed terrorist calmly stroked a foot-long gray beard as he sat comfortably in a military courtroom and peppered the Marine colonel who serves as his judge with questions. What, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed demanded to know, were Col. Ralph H. Kohlmann's religious affiliations? His views on torture? For a while Tuesday, Mohammed turned the tables on his captors and made the military judge justify his competency to preside over the trial of five accused Sept. 11 plotters.
2009
Ali Saleh Kahlah Marri admits helping 9/11 architects
May 1, 2009 | By Josh Meyer and Joel Hood
Accused Al Qaeda sleeper agent Ali Saleh Kahlah Marri on Thursday pleaded guilty to supporting the architects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In a plea agreement entered before U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm in Peoria, Ill., Marri admitted to one count of conspiring to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.
Every 9/11 anniversary a reminder of grief, healing
September 11, 2009 | By Faye Fiore
Lt. Col. Brian Birdwell is in Texas now. Army Chaplain Henry A. Haynes is in South Carolina. Eight years ago today, they were inside the Pentagon at 9:39 a.m., when American Airlines Flight 77 hit its mark. The world tends to give its fullest attention to anniversaries that end in zero or five -- not eight. There will be bagpipes and drums in New York. The president will lay a wreath at the Pentagon. Most of the nation will take a collective pause and move on. But for those like Birdwell and Haynes, directly touched by the terrorist attacks on Sept.
Every 9/11 anniversary a reminder of grief, healing
September 11, 2009 | By Faye Fiore
Lt. Col. Brian Birdwell is in Texas now. Army Chaplain Henry A. Haynes is in South Carolina. Eight years ago today, they were inside the Pentagon at 9:39 a.m., when American Airlines Flight 77 hit its mark. The world tends to give its fullest attention to anniversaries that end in zero or five -- not eight. There will be bagpipes and drums in New York. The president will lay a wreath at the Pentagon. Most of the nation will take a collective pause and move on. But for those like Birdwell and Haynes, directly touched by the terrorist attacks on Sept.
Fire damages chapel holding Sept. 11 remains
November 1, 2009 | Associated Press
A small fire at the temporary home for the remains of hundreds of World Trade Center victims was likely arson committed after a break-in Saturday, authorities said. The smoldering flames in a section of the facility's chapel on Manhattan's East Side were quickly extinguished. Firefighters got a call around 9 a.m. to respond to Memorial Park, a weatherproof tent on Manhattan's East Side where the city is storing the remains of Sept. 11 victims who have yet to be identified. The fire damaged a wooden bench, while mementos -- pictures, notes, flowers -- honoring the dead disappeared.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
CNN Paula Zahn NOW, January 30, 2007
Features Christopher Bollyn and Eric Hufschmid blame Zionists and Jews for the 9/11 attack.
ZAHN: We have all heard some absolutely incredible 9/11 conspiracy theories. The web of course is full of them. But tonight we're bringing one out that feeds on racism out in the open. We were absolutely shocked by one recent poll that found out that one in every three Americans believe the terror attacks were not the work of America's enemies, but some sort of inside job. And Deborah Feyerick found a smaller percentage who believe an even uglier theory.
transcripts.cnn.com
transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0701/30/pzn.01.html
ZAHN: We have all heard some absolutely incredible 9/11 conspiracy theories. The web of course is full of them. But tonight we're bringing one out that feeds on racism out in the open. We were absolutely shocked by one recent poll that found out that one in every three Americans believe the terror attacks were not the work of America's enemies, but some sort of inside job. And Deborah Feyerick found a smaller percentage who believe an even uglier theory.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This 9/11 attack was not by 19 Arabs. It was not by Muslims.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They talk about a Jewish plot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everywhere you look you find a Zionist agent.
FEYERICK: A conspiracy by Zionist Israeli intelligence or by Zionist moles in the Bush administration allegedly calling the shots in the Middle East. Websites, magazines, documentaries, radio programs, dozens of them disputing the fact that al Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was done by a group of Zionists.
FEYERICK: Are you suggesting that al Qaeda had nothing to do with it, that this was all part of a large conspiracy, Zionist or otherwise?
CHRISTOPHER BOLLYN, WRITER: Al Qaeda is in my opinion -- has been exploited. I question whether such a group even exists.
FEYERICK: Chicago writer Christopher Bollyn is one of the conspiracy theorists.
BOLLYN: I believe that there are Israeli elements that are connected to the Mossad, that are involved in this attack.
FEYERICK: There's no physical evidence to support claims that Jews were behind 9/11, but the speculation and rumors, mostly discounted here in the U.S., have gained momentum in Muslim countries where they're discussed and believed. Deborah Lauder is with the Jewish run Anti-Defamation League.
DEBORAH LAUTER, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE: What's most puzzling is when it reaches the Internet and goes into the Muslim-Arab world, we have this cross-fertilization of hate and this is something we've never seen before.
FEYERICK: A whole web of beliefs has grown to support this conspiracy theory. Listen to these Americans interviewed on Iranian television.
VOICE OF ERIC HUFSCHMID: This is a big plot to take control of us, to start war.
FEYERICK: One of the beliefs is that some 4,000 Israelis or Jews in the New York City area were warned by instant messages not to go to work on 9/11. For Wilton Sekzer, a retired police sergeant who is Jewish, the claim is outrageous.
WILTON SEKZER, FATHER OF WTC 9/11 VICTIM: The remains consistent of a piece of bone two and a half inches long and about an inch long, about the size of your index finger.
FEYERICK: And that's all they ever found?
SEKZER: That's all they ever found.
FEYERICK: Sekzer's son Jason died in the towers. He says Jason received no warning. Neither did some 400 Jews who died in the tragedy.
SEKZER: Give me the names of the 4,000 Jews who stayed home. Show me something. There is nothing to show. This is a total, ridiculous, asinine rumor that was started by anti-Semites.
MARK POTOK, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: I think the conspiracy theories in general really do work a bit like a game of telephone. They are told and retold and tend to get more and more far out in the telling.
FEYERICK: When you imply that somehow Israelis were involved in the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, people are going to look at you, critics will say you are an anti-Semite. Are you?
BOLLYN: No, I'm not an anti-Semite. This is the main charge that's leveled against me and has been for years, even before 9/11, because I am a critic of Zionist policies.
LAUTER: That's a very common technique among anti-Semites. They will twist things. I'm not an anti-Semite. I just believe XYZ.
FEYERICK: Anti-Semitic or not, the question now, will this 9/11 conspiracy theory become like the Kennedy assassination, analyzed for generations as an unsolved mystery? Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Time to check with our out in the open panel. I'm sure they have plenty to say about this. Lauren, Michael, Deroy, welcome back. All right. So let's start with the resident Jew on our panel here. You hear this stuff and it just makes you sick to your stomach. There is absolutely no evidence that anybody, other than al Qaeda, was involved with this attack. How upsetting is this to you?
GROSS: Look, we've been kicked around for 2,000 years. The face you're looking at has got a lot of anger in it because of that. That's not a way to live, wandering around the globe never having a home. It's pretty difficult because every time there's trouble, we're scapegoated. We're not the only ones that are scapegoated, but we're scapegoated by people who are frightened. They don't care. They are paranoid. You can't debunk this theory. It's madness as well as idiocy to think that the Jews brought down the World Trade Center on 9/11, but you cannot argue logic to someone who is mentally ill. What frightens me is that the whole nation is frightened and that fear is being fueled by this administration and by the media -- not you, just the opposite. I congratulate you and I'm grateful for you seriously, to bring this stuff out, because it is in those times that Jews like other minorities better get scared, better get angry, better fight for what's right and try and convince people courage is the cure for paranoia, not racism.
ZAHN: Is this just a smear campaign for anti-Semites?
MURDOCK: I agree with Michael. The blame the Jews theme is something that goes back about 2,000 years. It's a really hardy varietal. But look, I mean we know who pulled off 9/11. Richard Minard (ph) writes about it in his book, the disinformation. He quotes directly from Osama bin Laden who says on a tape we found, we calculated an advanced the number of casualties from the enemy who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event would take place that day, unquote, says Osama bin Laden himself.
(CROSSTALK)
LAKE: We have a government that has led us into a war and most Americans, even the smartest of us, sit around and go why, again, are we here in the war? When there are blanks, we often fill in the blanks and those blanks are filled in by misinformation, urban legends. We create stories and people believe things.
ZAHN: You're talking about a very unpopular war. We're talking about 9/11.
LAKE: What I'm talking about is the war is based upon what our government told us, this fear that we have from 9/11.
GROSS: This will get worse as the unrest in the Middle East gets worse. This problem will not go away. The reason it wasn't go away is because we don't have an administration as we once did that said and counseled us, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. We have just the opposite. We have an administration that fuels fear, that puts up the sign every day that tells us be frightened, stay scared, be worried, and so we are suspicious. We are xenophobic and we don't like anybody that's different from us.
ZAHN: How concerned are you that these conspiracy theories will take even deeper hold?
MURDOCK: Look, I think it's entirely possible. The kind of people who are spreading this sort of stuff will continue to blame the Jews for anything that can go wrong. I think it's very important as this war on terror continues to point out exactly who the bad guys are which are Islamo-fascists who want you, you, you and me dead and want people dead around the country and they're engaged in tremendous violence, killing thousands all around the world starting even before 9/11. The '93 attack, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole. This is a really serious enemy and we need to identify it and we need to educate people.
(CROSSTALK)
LAKE: That's my point. There are reasons why people are open to belief theories and these reasons will not change unless our government more actively works to inform us of what the real truth is so people are not just playing guessing games.
ZAHN: Lauren Lake, Michael Gross, Deroy Murdock, fascinating discussion. Your anger was palpable during that piece as well. Well understood.
Larry king live is coming up just in a few minutes. Hey Larry. You're going to talk to the owners of Barbaro tonight?
LARRY KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, well, who wouldn't be angry with that last story?
ZAHN: I know. I know, but it's astonishing, wasn't it, the statistic that one in three Americans believe not that particular conspiracy theory, but one of many?
KING: The old Goebbels theory, you tell a lie long enough, more people will believe it. ...
transcripts.cnn.com
transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0701/30/pzn.01.html
Friday, July 2, 2010
Terrorist Backers Lose Citizenship
By Joe Lieberman
The Hartford Courant
June 29, 2010
What a complete and total ass this man is. "Those who take up arms against America would lose the rights and privileges of citizenship, just as would have happened to Americans who joined the Nazis during World War II." Is he saying that no one indeed lost their citizenship during World War II? "The legislation requires proof that individuals committed forbidden acts..." Like murder, arson, assault, robbery? Don't we already have laws against these things? Lieberman spills the beans when he says, "The proposed legislation is not the sole solution to defeating the trend of our enemies using the Internet to radicalize American citizens." What he means is that the truth is his enemy. The "homegrown radicalization" of American young people doesn't require a foreign source. It is something he should legitimately be afraid of, as he is a completely corrupted American, deeply enmeshed in the sorts of foreign entanglements George Washington warned us about. As Pogo might put it, Lieberman is himself the enemy of the American state.
Since 1940, the United States has had a law that takes away the citizenship of Americans who join the armed forces of a country at war with us. That law recognizes that waging war against the U.S. is inconsistent with the rights, privileges and responsibilities of American citizenship. But the enemies we are fighting today at home and abroad are not subject to this law because they are terrorists who do not join the army of a foreign country or follow the laws of war. Last month, Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., and I introduced a bill to make the existing law apply to the terrorists with whom we are at war.
If enacted, this legislation will provide additional tools to our military, our intelligence community and our law-enforcement agents to prevent Americans who join al-Qaida, its affiliates and other foreign terrorists from hiding behind the benefits of citizenship to avoid detection and responsibility for their actions. Those who take up arms against America would lose the rights and privileges of citizenship, just as would have happened to Americans who joined the Nazis during World War II.
The bill will make Americans safer without compromising our civil liberties. I particularly want to point out, respectfully, that contrary to suggestions such as those made by Rabia Chaudry in her June 13 opinion piece in this paper, the bill does not target Muslims or any other group or individual based on anything other than their actions. The bill provides for citizenship to be taken from those who are proved to have helped al-Qaida or other foreign terrorist organizations, not because of who they are, including attributes such as race, ethnicity, national origin or religion.
Similarly, the allegation that the act would strip citizenship from anyone merely accused of having terrorist ties is wrong. The legislation requires proof that individuals committed forbidden acts and preserves the existing law's considerable safeguards to protect individuals' rights. Before Americans' citizenship can be removed, the State Department must determine they joined a terrorist organization with the intent of giving up their U.S. citizenship. That is a clear and high standard, and its determination can be challenged in U.S. federal courts. The government bears the burden to prove the charges.
The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of this statutory framework in 1980 and provided further support for the premise of this legislation in a decision this month. In upholding the constitutionality of a law that makes it a federal crime to support foreign terrorist organizations, the court explained "that the government's interest in combating terrorism is an urgent objective of the highest order." I wholeheartedly agree. I also agree with the court's description of foreign terrorist organizations as "deadly groups" and its conclusion that that working with them "serves to legitimize and further their terrorist means," helping them "facilitate more terrorist attacks."
This bill provides another tool to blunt the disturbing trend of terrorists radicalizing and recruiting young Americans. By improving the ability of our military, intelligence community and law enforcement agents to surveil, apprehend, prevent attacks by and prosecute Americans who join foreign terrorist organizations, this bill provides an effective counter-measure to terrorist groups' latest tactic. Americans will become a less attractive target for recruitment if we diminish the strategic value of their citizenship as a terrorist weapon.
The proposed legislation is not the sole solution to defeating the trend of our enemies using the Internet to radicalize American citizens, nor will it thwart every future attack against the U.S. by homegrown American terrorists. But by removing the citizenship of people who join groups at war with the U.S., we eliminate one incentive for radicalization of our young citizens by extremist groups and take away protections American law would give them if they were allowed to remain citizens. This law has been on our books for 70 years; it is time to update it for the war we have been fighting for the last decade.
Joe Lieberman of New Haven, is a U.S. senator who won election as an independent and caucuses with the Democrats.
The Hartford Courant
June 29, 2010
What a complete and total ass this man is. "Those who take up arms against America would lose the rights and privileges of citizenship, just as would have happened to Americans who joined the Nazis during World War II." Is he saying that no one indeed lost their citizenship during World War II? "The legislation requires proof that individuals committed forbidden acts..." Like murder, arson, assault, robbery? Don't we already have laws against these things? Lieberman spills the beans when he says, "The proposed legislation is not the sole solution to defeating the trend of our enemies using the Internet to radicalize American citizens." What he means is that the truth is his enemy. The "homegrown radicalization" of American young people doesn't require a foreign source. It is something he should legitimately be afraid of, as he is a completely corrupted American, deeply enmeshed in the sorts of foreign entanglements George Washington warned us about. As Pogo might put it, Lieberman is himself the enemy of the American state.
Since 1940, the United States has had a law that takes away the citizenship of Americans who join the armed forces of a country at war with us. That law recognizes that waging war against the U.S. is inconsistent with the rights, privileges and responsibilities of American citizenship. But the enemies we are fighting today at home and abroad are not subject to this law because they are terrorists who do not join the army of a foreign country or follow the laws of war. Last month, Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., and I introduced a bill to make the existing law apply to the terrorists with whom we are at war.
If enacted, this legislation will provide additional tools to our military, our intelligence community and our law-enforcement agents to prevent Americans who join al-Qaida, its affiliates and other foreign terrorists from hiding behind the benefits of citizenship to avoid detection and responsibility for their actions. Those who take up arms against America would lose the rights and privileges of citizenship, just as would have happened to Americans who joined the Nazis during World War II.
The bill will make Americans safer without compromising our civil liberties. I particularly want to point out, respectfully, that contrary to suggestions such as those made by Rabia Chaudry in her June 13 opinion piece in this paper, the bill does not target Muslims or any other group or individual based on anything other than their actions. The bill provides for citizenship to be taken from those who are proved to have helped al-Qaida or other foreign terrorist organizations, not because of who they are, including attributes such as race, ethnicity, national origin or religion.
Similarly, the allegation that the act would strip citizenship from anyone merely accused of having terrorist ties is wrong. The legislation requires proof that individuals committed forbidden acts and preserves the existing law's considerable safeguards to protect individuals' rights. Before Americans' citizenship can be removed, the State Department must determine they joined a terrorist organization with the intent of giving up their U.S. citizenship. That is a clear and high standard, and its determination can be challenged in U.S. federal courts. The government bears the burden to prove the charges.
The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of this statutory framework in 1980 and provided further support for the premise of this legislation in a decision this month. In upholding the constitutionality of a law that makes it a federal crime to support foreign terrorist organizations, the court explained "that the government's interest in combating terrorism is an urgent objective of the highest order." I wholeheartedly agree. I also agree with the court's description of foreign terrorist organizations as "deadly groups" and its conclusion that that working with them "serves to legitimize and further their terrorist means," helping them "facilitate more terrorist attacks."
This bill provides another tool to blunt the disturbing trend of terrorists radicalizing and recruiting young Americans. By improving the ability of our military, intelligence community and law enforcement agents to surveil, apprehend, prevent attacks by and prosecute Americans who join foreign terrorist organizations, this bill provides an effective counter-measure to terrorist groups' latest tactic. Americans will become a less attractive target for recruitment if we diminish the strategic value of their citizenship as a terrorist weapon.
The proposed legislation is not the sole solution to defeating the trend of our enemies using the Internet to radicalize American citizens, nor will it thwart every future attack against the U.S. by homegrown American terrorists. But by removing the citizenship of people who join groups at war with the U.S., we eliminate one incentive for radicalization of our young citizens by extremist groups and take away protections American law would give them if they were allowed to remain citizens. This law has been on our books for 70 years; it is time to update it for the war we have been fighting for the last decade.
Joe Lieberman of New Haven, is a U.S. senator who won election as an independent and caucuses with the Democrats.
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