Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11

[Pew Research Center]
"Americans watched in horror as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, left nearly 3,000 people dead in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 20 years later, they watched in sorrow as the nation’s military mission in Afghanistan – which began less than a month after 9/11 – came to a bloody and chaotic conclusion.

Table of contents

A devastating emotional toll, a lasting historical legacy

9/11 transformed U.S. public opinion, but many of its impacts were short-lived

U.S. military response: Afghanistan and Iraq

The ‘new normal’: The threat of terrorism after 9/11

Addressing the threat of terrorism at home and abroad

Views of Muslims, Islam grew more partisan in years after 9/11

The enduring power of the Sept. 11 attacks is clear: An overwhelming share of Americans who are old enough to recall the day remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. Yet an ever-growing number of Americans have no personal memory of that day, either because they were too young or not yet born.

A review of U.S. public opinion in the two decades since 9/11 reveals how a badly shaken nation came together, briefly, in a spirit of sadness and patriotism; how the public initially rallied behind the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, though support waned over time; and how Americans viewed the threat of terrorism at home and the steps the government took to combat it.

As the country comes to grips with the tumultuous exit of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan, the departure has raised long-term questions about U.S. foreign policy and America’s place in the world. Yet the public’s initial judgments on that mission are clear: A majority endorses the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, even as it criticizes the Biden administration’s handling of the situation. And after a war that cost thousands of lives – including more than 2,000 American service members – and trillions of dollars in military spending, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that 69% of U.S. adults say the United States has mostly failed to achieve its goals in Afghanistan.
9/11 and first responders 

Honoring First Responders on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11

"Soon after the planes hit the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, Brad Morrell deployed from Utah to New York City as part of an urban search and rescue team.

Aboard the military airlift transporting rescuers, Brad remembers seeing otherwise empty skies except for the fighter jets escorting their plane. When they got to the fallen towers, the scene was unlike anything else he and his teammates had experienced.

In the initial days, cell service was non-existent, land-mobile radios were down, and repeaters to boost signals weren’t working. The only communications available to Brad and his team were two-way pagers they brought from Utah.

“We knew that comms was an issue. For the first few days, we couldn't talk from Ground Zero back to our base of operations,” said Brad who now serves as the FirstNet Authority’s Director of Network and Technology Operations.

“After a few days, we got some repeaters up. But communications at Ground Zero was essentially being done the old-fashioned way. It was just face-to-face or yelling across the way. It hampered operations for sure.”

The tragedies of September 11 revealed fundamental problems with communication systems then used by our nation’s first responders. Radios relied on by police, fire, and paramedics did not easily operate across different agencies. Land and mobile phone lines were overwhelmed by a high volume of calls. First responders struggled to communicate with each other.

At the FirstNet Authority, our story is indelibly linked to September 11, 2011. Our mission is to oversee a communications network – FirstNet – that was created in light of the events of 9/11 to give American first responders a reliable nationwide broadband network..."
9/11 and First Responders 

The Terrorist Screening Database and Preventing Terrorist Travel

"After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the federal government developed a unified regimen to identify and list known or suspected terrorists. The regimen has received repeated congressional attention, and this report briefly discusses for congressional policymakers how the U.S. government fashions and uses the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) to achieve such an end. It also discusses how the federal government engages in two travel-related screening processes—visa screening and air passenger screening. Both processes involve subsets of the Terrorist Screening Database..."
Terrorist travel

Library of Congress to Receive 9/11-Responder Oral History Collection

"The Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center will become the home of a significant collection of oral histories provided by responders to the devastating Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the New York World Trade Center, U.S. Rep. Steve Israel announced today. The collection, known as the "Remembering 9/11 Oral History Project," is being donated by physician Benjamin Luft, the Edmond Pellegrino Professor of Medicine at Stony Brook University School of Medicine and director of the Stony Brook WTC Wellness Program, who treated many of those responders following the tragedy..".
9/11 Reponders collection

Declassified Documents Related to 9/11 Attacks

"Today, CIA has released to the public declassified versions of five internal documents related to the Agency’s performance in the lead-up to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The documents can be found at CIA’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) online reading room at http://www.foia.cia.gov/collection/declassified-documents-related-911-attacks.

The first of these documents is a redacted version of the 2005 CIA Office of Inspector General (OIG) Report on Central Intelligence Agency Accountability Regarding Findings and Conclusions of the Report of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001. In 2005, then-CIA Director Porter Goss issued a public statement on the OIG report. In 2007, CIA publicly released a redacted executive summary of the report along with a statement from then-Director Michael Hayden. In response to FOIA requests for the full 2005 OIG report, CIA and other agencies conducted an extensive review of the nearly 500-page document in order to release information that no longer needed to be protected in the interests of national security...:

911 attacks