SUMMARY: It’s been nearly two decades since the terrorist attacks of September 11th, and many first responders continue to suffer dire health consequences from exposure to hazardous materials at the disaster sites. Meanwhile, Congress still struggles with how to compensate them, as allocated funding runs dry. Lisa Desjardins talks to Michael McAuliff, a journalist who has covered the story for years.
SUMMARY: A new drama takes viewers back to the events that led to the 9/11 attacks. Hulu's "The Looming Tower," based on Lawrence Wright's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, retells the true story of the hunt for Osama bin Laden in the years before the fall of 2001, and how U.S. intelligence services withheld information from each other at critical junctures. Jeffrey Brown reports.
SUMMARY: As we approach the 15th anniversary of 9/11, we ponder the question: Is America safer now from terrorism than it was on that fateful day? Steven Brill spent the last year evaluating what has changed, including tightened airline security policies, but also how the country returned to "politics as usual." He speaks with Judy Woodruff about his findings -- and his recommendations.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): And now a look at the current state of security inside the U.S.
As we approach the 15th anniversary of 9/11, journalist Steven Brill spent the past year looking into how the country has changed since that terrible day, what's been spent and what gaps still exist. His article, “Are We Any Safer?”, appears in the latest issue of “The Atlantic.”
And I recently sat down with him and asked him what he learned.
STEVEN BRILL, Contributor, The Atlantic: In a nutshell, what I concluded was, the way we have responded to the terrorist attacks, to 9/11, which, you know, changed everything, is sort of a microcosm of what we are as a country today.
A lot of it was heroic, ingenious, people going beyond the cause of duty, doing really great things. And then a lot of it was actually quite the opposite, a lot of Beltway boondoggles, billions of dollars wasted because government contractors promised technology and solutions that they couldn't produce.
And we have struggled as a country with dealing with the notion of this new kind of risk. The idea, as President Bush explained, after 9/11, of never again, we're never going to have a terrorist attack again, that's just unrealistic in today's world.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You clearly give the government — and it spans several administrations, two administrations — credit for getting some things right, as you just said, but…
STEVEN BRILL: A lot of things right, and a lot of unsung people, tens of thousands of people going to work every day at the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, places like TSA, the Border Patrol, really obsessed with the job of keeping us safe.
And the only time we notice them is when something goes wrong. And that makes it a tough job. On the other hand, a lot of it went back to politics as usual. Every small town that you can think of made a request for government grants for homeland security, for everything ranging from routine fire trucks to fish tanks in a police station.
So, there are a lot of abuses.
JUDY WOODRUFF: I was struck because, early on in the piece, you say, yes, we are safer than we were on 9/11, safer against the kind of threat we faced on 9/11.
STEVEN BRILL: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But the threat has changed.
STEVEN BRILL: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And that's what the government is — all of us are grappling with right now.
STEVEN BRILL: We have done a lot to batten down the hatches, to make us safer, at the airports, at the ports, all over the place.
But the threats have multiplied, the threats around the world. Our defenses are much stronger. The offense has multiplied and is much stronger. And it's more difficult because, unlike the kind of coordinated, orchestrated attack that we faced on 9/11, where people were communicating, money was exchanging hands, that kind of stuff which we can now track, if some lone wolf in his basement is online…
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JUDY WOODRUFF: What would you say to the next leader of this country, the next president about what most needs to be done to make this country…
(CROSSTALK)
STEVEN BRILL: Well, the first thing that needs not to be done is to declare war on Muslims or Islam, because that’s exactly what those terrorists want.
They want this to be the apocalyptic, end-of-all-worlds war between them and us. And President Bush didn’t take the bait, and President Obama has resisted taking that bait.
Donald Trump campaigns on that. And it almost makes you think — in fact, it makes me think that ISIS would love to have someone like Trump be President, because they would get the fulfillment of their dream, which is to have the great confrontation with Western civilization.
The second thing is to keep educating the country. While doing everything we can to prevent terrorism, keep educating the country to the reality that there are going to be some attacks, and that doesn’t mean it’s the apocalypse. It doesn’t mean we’re weak.
Saying there are going to be attacks doesn’t mean you’re throwing in the towel, but it means we have to be realistic.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): In the 13 years since the 9/11 attacks, not every question about that day has been answered. Potentially explosive revelations that may implicate a key U.S. ally in the attacks remain hidden from public view, classified and stored beneath the U.S. Capitol Building.
Jeffrey Brown has our story.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Twenty-eight pages of a joint congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks were classified by the George W. Bush administration, which claimed they contained information that would hurt the war on terror.
But some lawmakers argue the pages reveal little about national security and a great deal about the government of Saudi Arabia’s role in the attacks. They say that the pages tell the story of Saudi officials meeting with and even funding two of the 9/11 hijackers when they first arrived in the U.S.
It’s all in a story by Lawrence Wright in this week’s “New Yorker” magazine. Wright is author of “The Looming Tower” about events leading to the 9/11 attack. His new book is “Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David.”
And he joins me now.
A new exclusive investigative story by Jason Leopold, who obtained the long sought after personal diaries of Abu Zubaydah, the first high-value detainee captured after 9/11 subjected to a brutal torture regimen by US government interrogators. The six volumes of diaries shed light on Zubaydah’s evolution from computer engineering student to student of jihad in Afghanistan during a civil war in 1991. Leopold’s second installment of his five part series deals with the events leading up to and after the 9/11 attacks, as taken directly from Zubaydah’s diaries. :
Abu Zubaydah clearly knew something big was in the works. Returning from Pakistan in mid-2001,he writes in his diary about an atmosphere of restless anticipation in Afghanistan, which was now his home, “People were waiting for the new operation, which Sheikh Bin Laden announced.” But when the news comes that Al-Qaeda hijackers had killed almost 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, Abu Zubaydah is awed by the scale and audacity of the attacks.
Al-Qaeda had twice struck high-profile blows against U.S. interests abroad — the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the December 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden. But spectacular strikes at the power centers of what bin Laden liked to call “the far enemy” was beyond the imagination of even many of bin Laden’s acolytes and fellow travelers in Afghanistan.
“On the 11th of September, a passenger airplane hit one of the giant towers … and people were surprised by something that was unimaginable,” Abu Zubaydah writes 17 days later. “As soon as they caught up their breath, another airplane hit the other tower, so screaming and crying was heard and the surprise was magnified. A third airplane hit the American Department of Defense building (the Pentagon). Then, the fourth airplane tried to hit the White House, but it did not hit the target, so it swerved away from its target; then we later heard that it crashed or was downed in another location, and news kept coming.”
“Happiness was not enough,” he adds. “As soon as the news came out on the radio, lambs were slaughtered, and juice and sweets were distributed for several days. News on the radio reflected American threats and preparation [for retaliation], close to a world war, while we were in a state of elation that God only knows.”
SUMMARY: Moments of silence were observed around the country in remembrance of the 9/11 attacks in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. As Americans paused to remember and honor the dead, so too did the presidential campaigns and the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. Gwen Ifill reports.
A federal health official’s ruling has cleared the way for 50 different types of cancer to be added to the list of sicknesses covered by a $4.3 billion fund set up to compensate and treat people exposed to the toxic smoke, dust and fumes in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The decision, released on Friday, came as a vindication for hundreds and perhaps thousands of people who have claimed — often in the face of resistance from public health officials — that their cancers were caused by their exposure to the dust cloud and debris thrown up by the attacks.
It will allow not only rescue workers but also volunteers, residents, schoolchildren and passers-by to apply for compensation and treatment for cancers developed in the aftermath of the attacks. The cancers will not be officially added to the list of covered illnesses until after a period of public comment and review that could last several months.
The decision, by Dr. John Howard, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, comes despite a current absence of evidence linking the attack to cancer, causing some skepticism among epidemiologists. It also reduces the amount of money for people suffering from ailments more conclusively linked to the Sept. 11 attacks, namely lung and other respiratory sicknesses.
And it poses a number of logistical challenges, since it will be difficult if not impossible to separate people who developed cancer as a result of ground zero from those who would have gotten the disease anyway, and because many cancer diagnoses are likely to be made years after the deadline for applying for compensation passes in 2016.
Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York and a primary sponsor of the 2010 law that set up the fund, said that she recognized those concerns but that the decision was the correct one. “I think it’s an important statement that the country’s going to take care of the workers and people who are there to save the lives of the people of the city,” she said.
GWEN IFILL (Newshour): Next: a tale of heroism and love amid the tragedy of 9/11.
It comes in the form of a new opera based on one person's true story.
NewsHour correspondent Spencer Michels has this look.
SPENCER MICHELS: From the orchestra pit at the San Francisco Opera, the strains of new music to tell the story of a 9/11 hero waft through the hall during a rehearsal.
The opera is "Heart of a Soldier." And it tells of the life and death of Rick Rescorla, an amazing soldier who saved thousands of lives in Vietnam four decades ago and in New York back in 2001.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): Next, our continuing look at the impact of 9/11 a decade later.
Tonight, we focus on how it's affected air travel.
NewsHour correspondent Tom Bearden reports.
TOM BEARDEN: This is where the greatest number of Americans have been affected in the post-9/11 world, the nation's commercial airports.
Passengers have been walking through metal detectors and had their carry-on bags X-rayed since the late '60s, but aviation security changed dramatically after September 2001.
Prior to the attacks, passenger screening was done by private companies who were supervised by the Federal Aviation Administration. After 9/11, the government created the Transportation Security Administration, which was the largest single federal startup since World War II.
Terry Crosby went to work for the TSA almost from the beginning. He signed up eight years ago because the attacks made him want to serve his country. He rotates through several different jobs during his shift, from running the X-ray machine for carry-on baggage...
TERRY CROSBY, Transportation Security Administration: He decided to leave his liquids in there.
TOM BEARDEN: ... to hand-searching for suspect items, to physically searching passengers.
TERRY CROSBY: Yes, all right, I'm going to go inside your collar here. All righty.
TOM BEARDEN: It's not his favorite job, but a job he says needs to be done.
TERRY CROSBY: A lot of Americans don't feel that they should be patted down, that it's not necessary to be patted down. But when you have things come in that don't belong or try to take things on the plane that don't belong, then it is necessary.
TOM BEARDEN: Some Americans believe those enhanced pat-downs, which started within the last year, violate their constitutional rights. They're just one part of a raging debate over how far the TSA should be allowed to go.
Since 9/11, security procedures have steadily escalated after a series of failed terrorist attacks. After 2001, passengers had to walk through security in their stocking feet after Richard Reid tried to detonate explosives hidden in his shoes.
In 2006, people started having to carry liquids in small containers inside a plastic bag after a plot to detonate liquid explosives was uncovered. And when Umar Abdulmutallab tried to set off plastic explosives hidden in his underwear in 2009, the government spent hundreds of millions of dollars to speed up deployment of advanced imaging technology machines that can peer beneath clothing.
JOHN PISTOLE, Transportation Security Administration: And the first thing we want to do is get all the facts that we can, and that may include the closed-circuit TV coverage of the checkpoint, if there is -- if that's available
In the 10 years since 9/11, a lot of people have asked me what I remember the most about being in New York as one of the NewsHour's team of journalists. Of course, my most vivid memories will always be the people and their tragic stories of loss. But there was something else I still can't shake: the smell at ground zero.
It wasn't the smell of death. I had unfortunately experienced that more than once in a long news career. And it wasn't burning plastic. It wasn't even the burning of other substances like rubber or melting metal. I knew what all those were like. It was something I had not experienced before and have not experienced since. And, I'm still not sure exactly how to describe it.
But what I do know now is what made that smell -- and how it's affected a number of first responders on the scene.
Scientists tell us that the dust cloud over the World Trade Center site contained a lot of nasty things. They have names like PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), dioxins and asbestos. And they can all cause cancer.
There were also manmade fibers, volatile organic compounds, silica, pulverized glass shards, alkaline concrete dust, lead, mercury and other heavy metals in the dust cloud over ground zero.
By 2007, when New York state industrial hygienist David Newman testified before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, it was also known that the federal Environmental Protection Agency had enough data available in September 2001 to determine there were dangerous substances in the air that could potentially harm people.
Newman, a member of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, known as NYCOSH, told the committee that EPA had "credible, substantive data that indicated the presence of toxic substances in significant quantities at the World Trade Center site," and that the agency response was "not consistent with its legal obligations to protect the health of the public against exposure to outdoor and indoor toxic environmental contaminants associated with a catastrophic disaster."
On Sept. 18, 2001, the EPA told the public in a news release that the air in Lower Manhattan "is safe to breathe."
As thousands of residents and business people were allowed to return, EPA issued news releases counseling people to clean their properties with "appropriate" equipment and said people should follow "recommended" and "proper" procedures. The problem with that was the agency never defined what those terms meant.
A subsequent investigation by the EPA's inspector general found advice like that "may have increased the long term health risks for those who cleaned the WTC dust."
You'll get no argument from Jon Sferazo about that.
On 9/11, Sferazo was a 46-year-old ironworker and certified New York state search-and-rescue worker whose major hobby was long-distance running. He went down to ground zero to help other first responders look for people missing in the pile of rubble that once was the World Trade Center. He stayed there for weeks working with the others hoping to find someone alive.
Today at 56, Sferazo has trouble catching his breath because his lungs operate at only about one-third their normal capacity. He is disabled, still has nightmares about what he saw at the World Trade Center site and he says he will never forget that smell.
In 2006, on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 he told the Newshour he was "sucking in so much of it. It was difficult to breathe." Sferazo added that anything he put over his face restricted the ability to take in air. Five years after the WTC tragedy, Sferazo told us he was still haunted by the fact that after weeks of searching his rescue team never found anybody.
"So, I gotta do something, you know? I got to try to help people".
In the years since that interview, Sferazo cashed in most of his retirement savings and invested it in land in Maine where he's trying to raise a species of chestnut trees that are resilient to the blight that took them out some years ago.
Sferazo sees his trees as new life. And for him, the trees serve as a memorial to all those thousands of first responders who worked with him at ground zero and have since suffered medical problems.
He also works with the American Greenlands Restoration project in Maine. It's reclaiming thousands of acres of land in the state. But the project also helps disabled first responders by providing them with free vacations and outdoor therapy.
Sferazo was heartened earlier this year when the Congress passed the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which will give long-term monitoring and health care to first responders injured or harmed from exposure to toxins at the World Trade Center site.
Based upon evidence from a report released in July, the legislation did not include cancer on the list of conditions that qualify an individual for compensation.
Then came a major study published in a special edition of the British medical journal The Lancet this month, which found that male firefighters who worked at the site were 19 percent more likely to develop cancer than members of the general population.
Sferazo says he was not surprised by the findings. "I knew this already," he said, sadly. And he's not sure it's going to mean that the Zadroga Act will get expanded to include people who've developed cancer.
Two of his firefighter buddies have died from cancer in the past couple of years. Sferazo says it's "too late" for them. And he doesn't see how any law will ever give him back the good health that he has lost for good.
"I feel like my life stopped on 9/11, and I'm just living out the rest by going through the motions."
But he says he does find consolation in his charity work and knowing he followed through on what he said to the NewsHour in 2006.
"I did something."
The terrorist attacks that shook the United States 10 years ago had effects that reached all the way into space.
Not only did the events of Sept. 11, 2001, prompt NASA to immediately beef up its already strict security procedures, they forced military space officials to reassess their priorities regarding space security and triggered a shift in space policy.
"There were certainly efforts made to link responding to terrorist threats to support for and expanding missile defense," said Joan Johnson-Freese, a space policy analyst at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.
Before 9/11, space security concerns under President George W. Bush were largely focused on China, Johnson-Freese explained. Questions swirled around what kind of space hardware China was building, why, and how the United States should respond.
[9/11 Remembered in Space Photos]
"The U.S. could pretty much answer the 'what' questions, but the others were more problematic," Johnson-Freese said. "China had questions about U.S. 'intent' – especially as concerned missile defense and rhetoric about 'space dominance' – and the U.S. had questions about Chinese 'intents.' Since most space technology is dual-use, determining what a country intends to use for civilian rather than military use, and what military hardware was defensive rather than offensive, is difficult."
A nation at war
Concerns about China did not go away following 9/11, but the focus of space security naturally shifted to Iraq and Afghanistan, “where space-force enhancement capabilities were required – communications, surveillance, etc.,” as the nation waged dual wars, Johnson-Freese said.
But the expansion of space security was itself hampered by the war effort, and “the costs of the war also meant that very expensive space systems were competing for funds to day-to-day operations,” she added.
As the country marks the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, the lingering effects of the attacks can still be felt, and many of the security measures that were introduced a decade ago either are still in place or have been expanded.
At NASA, security, particularly during launches, has been heightened since 9/11.
"Everybody re-evaluated their security policies and practices, and we still do," NASA spokesman Allard Beutel told SPACE.com. "Ten years later, we’re constantly re-evaluating security. As new threats come up, new countermeasures have come into place. It’s an ongoing process, and it's just the way of life in the post-9/11 world."
Shuttle launches after 9/11
Security at NASA has always been tight, particularly at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., from where the agency’s space shuttles launched into space for 30 years until the fleet's retirement last month. The Florida spaceport is also adjacent to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
"You always have to evaluate security measures, and we did that before the 9/11 attacks as well," Beutel said. "The space shuttles and human spaceflight have always been high-profile targets, if you think about it. The attacks didn’t change that; it just brought it into a new light."
Nearly three months after 9/11, the space shuttle Endeavour lifted off on its STS-108 mission to the International Space Station. The Dec. 5 launch occurred amid high security in cooperation with Air Force and other military personnel.
"The space shuttle is a highly visible national symbol and a large commitment by the American taxpayers," Wayne Hale, the space agency’s former shuttle chief and STS-108 lead flight director, said at the time. "So we would be remiss if we didn't take steps to protect that asset."
Leading up to Endeavour's liftoff, extra security precautions included withholding the announcement of the mission's scheduled launch time.
"There was a concern that the space shuttle launch would be a potential target, especially so close after the attacks," Beutel explained. So NASA declined to release the target launch time.
"A block of time – something like a four-hour window – was given instead. It was only much closer to the actual launch that we got more specific," he said.
This practice was continued for more than a year, through the ill-fated STS-107 flight of the space shuttle Columbia , which broke apart during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003. When NASA’s shuttle fleet returned to flight in 2005, the agency was confident that broader security measures would make announcing launch times less of a risk, Beutel said.
NASA in the post-9/11 world
Other changes restricted the public's access to the grounds at Kennedy Space Center.
"For two decades, the general public was able to obtain car passes that let them come to KSC and watch a shuttle launch," Beutel said. "People loved it – tens of thousands of people were able to see launches close up. But we never resumed this in the post-9/11 world. It was just the way things had to be. It was a potential threat to have the general public come into a secure federal facility attached to a military institution."
Immediately following the 9/11 attacks, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex closed for a few days, "to review and update safety and security measures," said Andrea Farmer, public relations manager at the visitor complex.
"We worked closely with NASA," Farmer added.
One aftereffect of 9/11 continues to shape the future of NASA and human spaceflight, Johnson-Freese said. The end of the space shuttle program and the transition toward relying on commercial firms for access to low-Earth orbit are reflections of a decade-old change in political priorities.
"The political will for space exploration, especially manned space, has suffered since 9/11, paying for the subsequent wars, and most recently the economic downturn," said Johnson-Freese. "There is significant rhetorical support – but not when prioritized against other areas of government spending. Americans are proud of the space program, but when jobs, 401(k)s and the debt are considered, there simply isn’t the political will to fund NASA to the level necessary for it to actually carry out a visionary – return to the moon, go to Mars, etc. – type program.
"We are in a very difficult transition period between having a government-funded program and a largely private one. I don't think people realize how difficult it could be."
A selection of audio recordings from the Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A.), North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and American Airlines from the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The recordings, some of which have been published previously, are being released in a multimedia report originally intended to be part of the Sept. 11 Commission’s 2004 report. Read Related Article »
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): Next, the second in our series of reports on how the attacks of 9/11 have affected people in this country and around the world.
Tonight, we look at the design and engineering of skyscrapers then and now.
NewsHour science correspondent Miles O'Brien has our story, produced in collaboration with the PBS program "NOVA."
MILES O'BRIEN: They don't build them like they used to. And for some, the story of 90 West Street in Lower Manhattan is concrete proof they should. On 9/11, debris from the Twin Towers rained down on this historic building next door. It was completely engulfed in flames.
JOHN NORMAN, New York Fire Department: We thought that the building was too dangerous to approach. And the fact that we had been told it had been evacuated when the towers were struck made a decision very simple for us, that we weren't going to fight that fire.
Retired FDNY Fire Chief John Norman is an expert on fighting high-rise fires. We met on the sidewalk in front of 90 West. Built in 1907, it is now an apartment building. Norman still marvels as how well it endured the conflagration 10 years ago.
JOHN NORMAN: This building had one steel beam that was affected by heat. It dropped a total of 1.5 inches. That was a horizontal column, so it was not a critical load-bearing member. The entire structural skeleton remained fine. And it's, as you see, still in use today.
MILES O'BRIEN: I'm sorry, one beam sagged? That's it?
JOHN NORMAN: One beam.
MILES O'BRIEN: Ninety West survived 9/11 because skyscrapers of that vintage were built like fortresses.
JOHN NORMAN: Everything was reinforced. You had a structural -- a heavy structural steel skeleton much like the towers. But these were protected with poured concrete or terra-cotta block tile, which gives tremendous resistance to fire. It's basically a redundant system of protection.
MILES O'BRIEN: Of course, skyscraper design and construction has evolved over the years. The newer glass skyscrapers are half as heavy per square foot as the old concrete fortresses.
Is it possible to do both, to build the gleaming glass towers and put enough technology in them to make them as safe as this building?
JOHN NORMAN: The glass towers are a problem. The glass skin is a weak point. But you can build buildings that are structurally stable and can withstand the fire long enough to allow the fire department to suppress it without giving in to the pressures of the economy. Yes, that's possible.
MILES O'BRIEN: And that is precisely what they're trying to prove with the design and construction of the $3 billion One World Trade Center.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): Finally tonight, another 9/11 story.
This one begins a series of reports on how the attacks of 9/11 have affected people in this country and around the world. What's changed in the decade since that fateful day?
Tonight, we look at the powerful memories of a special group of eyewitnesses: the students, teachers and parents at New York's P.S. 150, a school just blocks away from ground zero.
"The Class of 9/11" was produced for the Dart Society, a nonprofit organization that supports journalists who cover wars, conflict and other traumatic events. It is the work of independent filmmaker Jacques Menasche. His son Emanuel was in the first grade at P.S. 150.
Here are extended excerpts from the documentary.
