SEC460 Case Analysis

Case Analysis

SEC460 Case Analysis

Name

Class

Date

Professor

September 11, 2001

Every adult in America can tell you where they were when airplanes began to crash into important American landmarks on September 11, 2001 killing thousands of innocent Americans. The international terrorist attack forever changed America and woke the country up to the potential threats facing the nation. This day will never be forgotten and any illusions of safety have forever been shattered. Never before have there been an international terrorist attack on American soil this devastating. Nineteen Islamic extremists hijack four American airplanes murdering thousands of innocent Americans. The events on 9/11 resulted in the death of over 3,000 Americans with 400 being first responders that went into the Twin Towers in order to rescue the injured.

Participants, Planning, Objectives, and Execution

The attacks on 9/11 were committed by 19 Islamic terrorists that made up different terrorists cells in the country. The 19 men entered the country legally, obtained legitimate jobs, and quietly planned the devastating attacks. The success of the September 11 plot depended on the ability of the hijackers to obtain visas and pass an immigration and customs inspection in order to enter the United States (). The 19 terrorist were also able to go undetected in the country for several years while along making contact with members of the Al Qaeda terrorist group and planning the devastating attacks. At no time were the terrorists detected or the devastating attacks would have failed.

The planning for the attacks began with the twenty three visas that were applied for by Islamic extremists bent on becoming martyrs for Islam. Out of the twenty three visas twenty two were granted. Several of the men entered the country to attend universities that would give them the necessary skills to pilot a 747 aircraft. The terrorist began entering the country in January of 2000 and many were successful in leaving the country and having no problems with reentry. The hijackers entered the country through Floridian airports and airports in New York and Washington, D.C.

The four pilots responsible for flying the planes into buildings are Mohammed Atta, Hani Hanjour, Ziad Samir Jarra, and Marwan al Shehhi but there were other hijackers being trained to fulfill the pilot positions. The four pilots were able to enter and exit the country 17 times without being detected. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind behind the attacks while Ali Abdul Aziz Ali was the group’s financial facilitator. Only one of the hijackers entered the country on an academic visa while the others entered the country on tourist visas. Of all of the hijackers that entered the country only two were interviewed by customs agents.

The hijackers entered the country on six month visa and many obtained legitimate identification. It was important to retain the appearance of legitimacy in order to ensure the success of their terroristic plan. The original plan by Al Qaeda was to take over ten planes on 9/11 instead of just four but due to an inability of the hijackers to properly coordinate this many planes the attack was scaled back to just the four planes (Eggen, 2004). Two of the planes were headed for the twin tours while the third plan was sent to the Pentagon. There have been questions about exactly where the fourth plane was heading but it was going to be the White House or the Capitol Building with the goal of killing members of Congress.

The plot to kill thousands of Americans took several years but Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda were determined to see the American government suffer for the perceived wrongs. Bin Laden was responsible for handpicking each of the 19 hijackers while Khalid Sheik Mohammed coordinated the actual attacks. The original date for the attacks was September 9th but due to timing issues the attacks instead occurred on 9/11. Mohammed was responsible for proposing the terrorist use American planes as missiles but the upper leadership in Al Qaeda ignored his suggestions. It was not until Bin laden began to support Mohammed’s efforts that the pan to attack American landmarks with planes was developed.

The final plan involved the 19 hijackers going to an east coast airport and boarded four different planes headed to California. The four planes were chosen because they were loaded down with fuel. Once the airplanes were in route to California the hijackers pulled out box blades and small knives and took control of the plane. Once the hijackers took control of the planes transforming ordinary commuter jets into guided missiles they targeted the landmark they had been assigned. The first plane flew into the North tour at 8:45 am creating confusion and the false impression it was an unfortunate accident.

When the second plane hit the south tower at 945 am it became obvious this was a terrorist attack. A third plane hit the Pentagon as Americans sat transfixed and horrified at the events that were unfolding. The passengers in the first three planes were oblivious to their fate but the fourth plane had been alerted by loved ones of the events involving the other planes. By this time the public had learned the identity of the terrorists and of their goal to crash the fourth plane into the white house or other location. The brave passengers of United Flight 93 took control of the plane and it was crashed into a field instead of an American landmark.

The objective of the terrorist group was revenge on the American government for their support of Israel. These terrorists hate America and everything American. In order to make America pay for their support of Israel, for the Persian Gulf War, and the desecration of Mecca and Medina the attacks were designed to cause the most destruction and the largest loss of life. While these specific goals have been identified the facts are countries in the Middle East have resented the power of America and the countries failure to support their war against Israel.

While the hatred of everything American was one of the main goals of the attack another goals was to raise funds for the terrorist organization. Bin Laden and other top leaders believed an attack the size planned for America was result in a fundraising frenzy as well as an increase in the number of recruits joining the terrorist group. While the planning went on for a couple of years there were many times when the attack was almost cancelled by the group’s top leaders. Senior advisors warned Bin Laden that the potential repercussions from the attack could forever affect the ability of the terrorist group to spread their terroristic message.

Vulnerabilities Exploited

The terrorist attacks on American on September 11, 2001 were a great shock o the American public but not so much for the American government. In 1995 the American government was first warned about the threat the Middle East posed to the United States and other westernized countries. Despite these warnings a known Middle Eastern terrorist group was able to infiltrate the country and commit the most heinous terrorist attack in American history. This failure to act resulted in 19 hijackers legitimately entering the country and killing over 3,000 people. The terrorist act also woke the country to the dangers posed to the nation in a new global society resulting in comprehensive anti-terrorism measures being established.

In 1998 Osama Bin Laden was identified as a major international, terroristic threat to westernized countries. The radical fundamentalist had made many threats against America and European countries. A threat advisory was immediately sent by the headquarters of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to all immigration inspectors at ports of entry (Taveras, 2004). The INS was also warned of the plan of Al Qaeda to infiltrate American society in order to conduct a large terrorist attack. The warnings went unheeded and members of the Al Qaeda terrorist group where able to enter the country over thirty times without detection.

9/11 commission discovered many mistake made by several different agencies tasked with protecting the country. In fact fifteen of the hijackers allowed into the country on tourist visa’s had known terrorists ties. They should have been flagged and denied entry into the country. If these men had attempted to get into the country after 9/11 they would have been on the countries watch list and denied entry into the country. The 9/11 Commission also located memorandums sent to the President providing intelligence on the planned attacks. Instead of stopping flights on September 1, 2001 only military personnel were warned and cancelled their travel plans that day.

Human and Economic Effects

The events of 9/11 created great human hardship and had major economic repercussions. After the attacks on the twin towers the building collapsed killing thousands and trapping many under the debris. The debris spread for blocks covering the area in ash and making it more difficult to assist the wounded. In the end 2,998 Americans died at the twin towers with 343 of these deaths being firefighters, 23 New York police officers, and 37 port authority officers (Stunich, 2008). The plane that crashed into the Pentagon killed 125 military personnel and an additional 64 on the plane. The last plane crash resulted in the death 45 passengers and crew.

Once the attacks were over family members flooded into the area desperately seeking answers to what happened to their loved ones. Due to the immense death and destruction the area was in chaos and people had difficulty locating loved ones. The way family members learned their loved one had died was when they never heard from them in the days after the attack. It would take years to identify all of the victims and in the end some bodies were never recovered. The entire nation was devastated by these attacks that in the end could have been averted if the government had been diligent at locating and stopping the terroristic threats.

The events on 9/11 created grave harm to the victims and their families as well as had a major negative effect on the American economy. Not only were three major landmarks destroyed and four airplanes crashed many people lost their jobs and the economy went into a complete downward spiral. The estimated direct cost of the terrorist attack was twenty billion dollars. Within weeks of the Bush Administration had declared war on terrorism and established Homeland Security. The creation of the new agency would cost the country billions of dollars as well as other counter measures put into place.

The direct economic costs of the terrorist attacks did not include the damage caused to the financial market and the huge costs of funding a war. After 9/11 the unemployment rate began to soar while the Federal Reserve added some $100 billion per day in liquidity in order to protect the countries financial systems (Makin, 2002). The stock market took a huge hit and airline suffered major financial losses when Americans refused to fly plus form being grounded for weeks after the attack. Despite being afforded financial assistance from the government many airlines went under.

Other economic repercussion form 9/11 involved the insurance companies. Insurance companies were hit with large insurance claims for casualty and property claims costing over 40 billion dollars. The agriculture industry was impacted by the attacks when trade came to a standstill after the attacks. Shipments were delayed for weeks and agriculture products that were perishable were destroyed. Farmers lost major revenue and trade agreements between countries were damaged. Many small businesses were disrupted causing a loss of business that they small business could not survive. In fact Nearly 18,000 businesses were dislocated, disrupted or destroyed by 9/11 (Makin, 2002).

The hardest hit city after the attacks on 9/11 was New York City. The Gross City Product (GCP) was hit by a loss exceeding 27 billion dollars which devastated the economy. Not only did the city lose billions in revenue from businesses that could no longer generate taxes the city was responsible for a massive recovery and cleanup effort. Even though the city was to be reimbursed for this major disaster expense it did not stop the major layoffs and rising unemployment in the city. Ten years after the attack the country had fallen into a complete recession. The largest expenditure causing the weakening of the American economy was the War on terror.

Prescribed Countermeasures

After the attacks on 9/11 the government was woke up to the international terrorist threat and began to implement comprehensive counter measures to ensure another terrorist attack on American soil would be forever prevented. The first counter measure was to create Homeland Security which would unite over twenty agencies to ensure that information pointing to a threat against the nation is not properly communicated to the necessary parties. Homeland Security agencies include the Federal Bureau of Investigations which is responsible for investigating and identifying potential terrorist threats in the country while the INS is responsible for preventing terrorists from gaining entry into the country. Each agency plays a specific role which is designed to prevent any further terrorist attacks.

The next anti-terrorism counter measure was to create the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act is legislation created to broaden the investigatory power of law enforcement concerning the potential terrorist threat. Previous to 9/11 the protection of the citizen’s rights far outweighed the safety of the nation but since 9/11 that has all changed. For the greater good of the nation the Patriot Act afforded law enforcement the opportunity to conduct searches without the need for a warrant and also allowed law enforcement to remove citizens from society suspected of terrorism. These citizens were not afforded due process rights and many are still being held with no proof at Guantanamo Bay.

Another counter measure that was developed was the creation of the TWA which is a law enforcement agency tasked with protecting Americas airports from terrorist attempting to take control of airliners. The TWA can conduct warrantless searches and I responsible for ensuring any threats are identified before they can get on an American airline. Border patrol has also become an agency under Homeland Security that ensures that illegal aliens or terrorist threats to not legally enter the country. With hundreds of thousands of people entering into the country every day the take is enormous.

Conclusion

The event of 9/11 will forever change America and dissolved the nation’s illusions of safety. While the terrorists responsible for these attacks have been punished al Qaeda still exists as well s many other Islamic terrorist groups bent on causing destruction for westernized countries. In order to ensure another attack of this size or any size never occurs again the country will have to remain diligent in preventing terrorism, both domestic and foreign. The recent bombing at the Boston Marathon has shown the country is still vulnerable to potential terrorist attacks and that even with comprehensive countermeasures in place some threats will go undetected.

References

Eggen, D. (2004). Al Qaeda Scaled Back 10-Plane Plot Attacks Evolved Amid Infighting, 9/11

Panel Reports. Retrieved June 7, 20-13 from

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45853-2004Jun16.html

Makin, G. (2002). The Economic Effects of 9/11: A Retrospective Assessment. Retrieved June 7,

2013 from http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RL31617.pdf

Stunich, A. (2008). Why 9/11 Occurred on September 11. Retrieved June 7, 2013 from

http://www.islam-watch.org/Stunich/Why-9.11-Occurred-on-September-11.htm

Taveras, D. (2004). Court TV Documentary Shows: How Government Failed Us on 9/11.

Retrieved June 7, 2013 from

http://www.thebronxjournal.com/court-tv-documentary-shows-how-government-failed-us