# September 11 and the World Trade Center The 2001 attacks, the fall of the towers and WTC 7, and the official inquiries, with the Truth movement's demolition and inside-job claims set against what they found. *This story led to: The age of terror* *This story parallel: The military-industrial complex and Pax Americana* *This story parallel: The Project for a New American Century* *This story part of: State, law, and coercion* ## September 2000 — The "new Pearl Harbor" line A 2000 report by the Project for the New American Century, Rebuilding America's Defenses, said that transforming the military would likely be slow "absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor." Critics of US foreign policy connect this line to 9/11. In context the passage was arguing that change to the armed forces tends to be gradual without a galvanizing shock, not predicting or calling for an attack. ## 2001 — WTC 7 draws intense scrutiny World Trade Center 7 was the first tall steel-framed building understood to have collapsed primarily because of fire rather than a direct impact. Because a modern high-rise falling from fire alone had not been seen before, its collapse became the single most studied and disputed event of the day. That novelty is why engineers and skeptics alike focused on it. ## July 2001 — The complex is insured for about $3.5 billion per occurrence As part of the lease, the World Trade Center is insured through a group of companies for roughly $3.5 billion per occurrence. The policies were still being finalized in temporary form when the attacks happened, which left the exact terms open to argument. The phrase per occurrence would become the center of years of litigation. ## 24 July 2001 — Silverstein signs a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center Larry Silverstein's Silverstein Properties takes over a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The deal, worth about $3.2 billion, closes just six weeks before the attacks. It is the first time the complex passes to private management. ## 11 September 2001 — Flight 11 strikes the North Tower At 8:46 in the morning, hijackers fly American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 taken over after takeoff from Boston, into the north face of the World Trade Center's North Tower. The impact and burning jet fuel trap hundreds of people on the floors above. It is the first strike of the September 11 attacks. ## 11 September 2001 — Flight 175 strikes the South Tower At 9:03, hijackers fly United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower as television cameras, already trained on the burning North Tower, record it live. The second strike makes clear the country is under a coordinated attack. Both towers are now on fire. ## 11 September 2001 — Flight 77 strikes the Pentagon At 9:37, hijackers fly American Airlines Flight 77 into the west side of the Pentagon, the headquarters of the US military. The crash and fire kill 125 people in the building along with all 59 passengers and crew aboard the plane. It is the third of the four hijackings that morning. ## 11 September 2001 — Nearly 3,000 people killed The attacks kill 2,977 people across New York, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, not counting the 19 hijackers. The dead include office workers, airline passengers, and 441 first responders, most of them New York City firefighters and police who died when the towers fell. It is the deadliest attack on American soil. ## 11 September 2001 — Passengers fight back on Flight 93 United Airlines Flight 93 is hijacked after leaving Newark, but passengers learning of the other attacks by phone storm the cockpit. The plane crashes in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:03, killing all 44 aboard. The 9/11 Commission concluded the hijackers' likely target was the US Capitol or the White House. ## 11 September 2001 — The North Tower collapses At 10:28, one hour and 42 minutes after Flight 11 hit it, the North Tower collapses. With both towers down, lower Manhattan is buried in a vast cloud of pulverized concrete and debris. The twin 110-story towers, finished in the early 1970s, were gone within two hours of being struck. ## 11 September 2001 — The South Tower collapses At 9:59, 56 minutes after it was hit, the South Tower collapses straight down in about ten seconds. The plane's impact had severed columns and stripped fireproofing, and the fires that followed weakened the remaining steel until the floors above gave way. Its fall killed people still inside and rescuers in the streets below. ## 11 September 2001 — World Trade Center 7 collapses At 5:20 in the afternoon, the 47-story World Trade Center 7, also called the Salomon Brothers Building, collapses. No plane hit it. Debris from the falling North Tower had struck it and started fires that burned uncontrolled for hours after the water supply to the sprinklers failed. It stood a block north of the twin towers. ## May 2002 — FEMA's building performance study The Federal Emergency Management Agency, working with the American Society of Civil Engineers, publishes the first technical study of why the buildings fell. It attributes the tower collapses to the impacts combined with the fires and calls for a deeper investigation. Its findings on WTC 7 were preliminary and led directly to a fuller federal inquiry. ## September 2002 — The "pull it" remark In the 2002 PBS documentary America Rebuilds, Larry Silverstein said of WTC 7, "I said, you know, we've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it." The Truth movement reads "pull it" as an order to demolish the building. Silverstein's spokesman said he meant withdrawing the firefighting effort, and demolition experts and NIST note that a 47-story building cannot be wired for demolition in a matter of hours. ## November 2002 — The 9/11 Commission is created Congress and President George W. Bush establish the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, known as the 9/11 Commission. The bipartisan panel is charged with tracing how the attacks were planned and why they were not stopped. It holds public hearings and reviews classified intelligence. ## c. 2002 — One occurrence or two: the insurance battle Silverstein argued the two plane strikes into two towers were two separate occurrences, which would double the payout toward about $7 billion. The insurers argued it was a single coordinated event, so a single payout. The dispute turned on which insurers' policy wording applied, and it ran through several trials and appeals. ## July 2004 — Al-Qaeda named as the perpetrator The 9/11 Commission concluded that the attacks were planned and carried out by al-Qaeda, the network led by Osama bin Laden, and executed by 19 hijackers. Bin Laden, who had declared war on the United States in the 1990s, later publicly acknowledged ordering the attacks. This is the finding of the official investigation into who was responsible. ## 22 July 2004 — 9/11 Commission report The 9/11 Commission Report concluded that the attacks succeeded because of failures of imagination, policy, capabilities and management across US intelligence and law enforcement agencies, including a lack of information-sharing between the CIA and FBI. It recommended sweeping reforms, including the creation of a Director of National Intelligence to coordinate the intelligence community and the National Counterterrorism Center. Most of its major recommendations were subsequently enacted by Congress. ## c. 2004 — Claims of an inside job and foreknowledge The movement also argues that the attacks were an inside job, or were knowingly allowed to happen, and that the insurance payout points to a financial motive. These are claims made by the movement, not established findings. The 9/11 Commission and the federal investigations attribute the attacks to al-Qaeda and reject the inside-job and foreknowledge claims. ## c. 2004 — The 9/11 Truth movement takes shape From about 2004, a loose network of groups and websites known as the 9/11 Truth movement grows into a documented social phenomenon. Its members reject the official account and press for new investigations. The movement is notable as a case study in how a major traumatic event generates lasting alternative narratives. ## September 2005 — NIST reports on the Twin Towers The National Institute of Standards and Technology publishes its investigation into why the towers fell. It concluded the aircraft impacts severed columns and knocked fireproofing off the steel, and the fires that followed weakened the structure until the floors above the impact came down. The report ran to thousands of pages. ## c. 2006 — The controlled-demolition claim A central claim of the 9/11 Truth movement is that the towers and WTC 7 were brought down not by planes and fire but by pre-planted explosives in a controlled demolition. NIST, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the broad engineering community reject this and attribute the collapses to impact and fire. Both the claim and the expert rejection are presented here as what each side holds. ## May 2007 — Courts split, and the payout reaches about $4.55 billion Juries and courts split the question: some insurers were bound to the single-occurrence reading, while others were found to face two occurrences. A 2007 settlement ended the litigation, and the insurance recovery totaled roughly $4.55 billion, well short of the $7 billion Silverstein had sought. The money went toward rebuilding the site. ## November 2008 — NIST reports on WTC 7 In a separate report, NIST concluded that normal office fires, left to burn because the sprinklers lost their water supply, caused the steel beams to expand with heat. That thermal expansion dislodged a girder and buckled a critical column, number 79, which set off a progressive collapse of the floors. This is the documented official explanation for the fall of WTC 7.