Episode Recording -- "Impact of 9/11"

• 1:28:86-4:10:74 - Foreign Policy Changes: In this section of my podcast, I dive into the way the United States changed their foreign policy post 9/11. The severity of 9/11 led George W. Bush and the other heads of the government to spark the Iraq War, a terrible war for the United States in the end. This was a fairly obvious choice for the government and was greatly supported by the US people. I dive into the idea of how Bush was really thrown into the wolves as well, and how a lot of people judge him now, however, the choice he made looked like the right one at the time based off the facts I provide.
• 4:11:58-6:13:38- National security and immigration: In this section of my podcast, I discuss how 9/11 caused a change in the government's approach to national security, with a tightened lense on domestic national security, as well as immigration. National security became priority number one after 9/11 for the whole nation. In order to ensure this, the government spent a ton of money, and implemented things such as the Homeland Security Act in 2002 to attempt to prevent things like 9/11 from happening again. Another method they used to try and prevent this was tightening immigration. Members of Al-Qaeda were easily able to come into the United States, so the government made immigration tougher by making new laws to tighten things up.
• 6:29:28-9:29:10 - Intelligence: The last section of my podcast discussed the intelligence dilemma post 9/11. The major failure by the United States involving 9/11 was the failure in intelligence, both leading up to 9/11 and involving the Iraq War. Bad intelligence given to the president started the Iraq War that lasted a decade. So how did the country fix this? The Homeland Security Act was a big part of this because it united agencies under one umbrella. The issue they found themselves in was that those agencies were unprepared to deal with domestic terrorism because agencies like the CIA were more focused on global intelligence. People distrusting federal agencies like the FBI and CIA along with the time it took for intelligence agencies to adjust formed challenges.

0:00-1:27:57: Presentation: How’s it going everyone and welcome. My name is Henry Tabb, a sophomore student from Sewanee the University of the South. I am currently taking Dr. Andrew Maginns History 202 class on United States History. Today I will be speaking to you in my podcast about 9/11. 9/11 occured September 11, 2001. It was an attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the pentagon, done by Al-Qaeda operatives who hijacked four planes throughout the US, with one of the hijacked planes crash landing in Pennsylvania, two into the twin towers, and one into the pentagon. Nearly 3,000 defenseless Americans died in the terrorist attack, and it was evident that Al-Qaeda was targeting the heartbeat of our country. Today we will be looking less at the horrendous event that is forever ingrained in our minds. Instead, we will look at all the issues that 9/11 caused as a result of the attack. 9/11 launched an immediate response by the United States government to go after the people who attacked our country. The decision by the government to go after the perpetrators led to drastic changes in every American’s life then and are still present today in culture, society, and government. Today's episode is for the people who only see 9/11 as an event, not as a turning point in American history. The overall goal of this episode is for all you listeners to understand how 9/11 changed America forever based on the changes in foreign policy, national security and immigration laws, as well as the handling of global and national intelligence. The big question i/s, did the actions by the federal government really fix anything, or just drag us into more issues

1:28:86-4:10:74: Supporting Point 1 (Foreign policy changes): 9/11 occurred domestically, sure, but it wasn’t domestic forces. Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, was born into a billionaire family in Saudi Arabia, and he was sent off to Oxford, England for school. While there, he focused his studies on the Quran, the text of the Islamic faith. Upon his return to the middle east, he aided the CIA in an effort to prevent Russia from invading Afghanistan. In the years that followed the invasion, Bin Laden had created his own military group and in 1988, he helped found Al-Qaeda. His Al-Qaeda group committed several attacks before 9/11, including the bomb in the parking garage of the World Trade Center in 1993 (Dr. Andrew Maginn, “The Recent Past,” History 202: History of the United States II, (class lecture, Sewanee: The University of The South, Sewanee, Tennessee, April 21, 2025)). The eager and hungry terrorist group were desperate for something to put themselves onto the biggest stage. Their successful attack forced the United States to make foreign policy adjustments to do everything they could do in their power to eliminate these threats. The death of 3,000 defenseless American’s led to an immediate call for action. Everything the US had been doing prior was thrown out the window, all focus was on eliminating the terrorism threat. George W. Bush, the president at the time, had a trusted group of wartime advisors that believed he should go after these people, so he did so (Kent Bolton. U.S. National Security and Foreign Policymaking after 9/11 : Present at the Re-Creation. (Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008), 171)). In his 2002 State of the Union speech, Bush laid out his master plans for his completely revamped foreign policy program saying, “First we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans, and bring terrorists to justice. And, second, we must prevent the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world” (George W. Bush"Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union, January 29, 2002." In Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush, 2002, Book 1-January 1 to June 30, 2002, 129 - 136. Washington, DC: Government Publishing Office. 2002. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/PPP-2002-book1/PPP-2002-book1-doc-pg129-3.). That second part of that where Bush talks about weapons of mass destruction is one to note I’ll talk about later. The goal is obvious though from Bush. He wants to make sure that something like 9/11 genuinely can not happen again. Later in the speech, Bush even calls out other countries, telling them if you help out the terrorist groups we will come after you too (George W. Bush "Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union, January 29, 2002." In Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush, 2002, Book 1-January 1 to June 30, 2002, 129 - 136. Washington, DC: Government Publishing Office. 2002.  https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/PPP-2002-book1/PPP-2002-book1-doc-pg129-3.) It’s a very aggressive, very different style from Bush from his predecessors, and it’s one of those situations where you wonder, should he have been less aggressive based on what he knew and the facts presented to him? The issue is that Bush was thrown into an unprecedented situation. This isn’t like Pearl Harbor where Roosevelt just joined a war, Bush is CREATING a war. In the decade to follow 9/11, Bush and the United States government had troops in Iraq. It wasn’t until 2011 that soldiers finally left Iraq, in a state of complete disarray and violence (Joseph L. Locke and Ben Wright, The American Yawp: A Massively Collaborative Open U.S. History Textbook, Volume 2: Since 1877, Section 30, Chapter 4). The decision by Bush to go after Al-Qaeda resulted in the United States being flung into the longest war in American history (Joseph L. Locke and Ben Wright, The American Yawp: A Massively Collaborative Open U.S. History Textbook, Volume 2: Since 1877, Section 30, Chapter 3). It’s interesting though. Today we get upset that Bush put us in the Iraq War because we know that some of his reasons were not very accurate in reality which I will dive into later, but at the time this decision was very popular and it took several years for people to feel differently (Kent Bolton. U.S. National Security and Foreign Policymaking after 9/11 : Present at the Re-Creation. (Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008), 173)

4:11:58-6:13:38: Supporting Point 2 (national security domestically and immigration): The American government and the US people were in full support of putting an emphasis on national security post 9/11. The quick response by the federal government to start a war with terrorist groups in the Middle East was what most people viewed as the correct response by the federal government, however, the fear in the United States that there were members of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups among them was overwhelming. Everyone had just seen a group of terrorists make a direct attack against the United States, and they had been living in the United States and hijacked American planes. So how would the government respond? All eyes were on them. Between the last fiscal budget before 9/11 to the end of the fiscal year in 2004, the national security spending had increased 50% in just 3 years. An extremely rare occurrence in American history that had not happened since the Korean War ( National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission report: final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (Washington, D.C., 2004). Available online via The 9/11 Commission (http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/). While the war in Iraq was a large piece of that budget, the Homeland Security Act in 2002, which created the Department of Homeland Security, was an integral part of the United States solving their domestic security issues. The Department of Homeland Security combined 22 agencies and around 170,000 government employees under one umbrella (Douglas Brook and Cynthia King, “Civil Service Reform as National Security: The Homeland Security Act of 2002,” Public Administration Review, May-Jun.,2007, Vol.67, No.3, ed. Public Administration Review (New York City:Wiley, 2007), 399-407). The sheer size of this agency forced much more coordination between the federal agency and local and state level governments (William Newmann, “Reorganizing for National Security and Homeland Security,” Public Administration Review September Vol.62 Special Issue: Democratic Governance in the Aftermath of September 11,2001, ed. Foreign Policy Association, (New York City: Wiley, 2002), 126-137). The huge budget increase was necessary for the war, but the formation of new government groups like the Department of Homeland Security was integral for a feeling of security for the people, as well as an implemented group that would be more prepared within the federal government to deal with the threat of terrorism domestically.

One piece of national security that was an issue before, following, and still today is immigration. Immigration was a major step for the United States in trying to make the country safer. It became more challenging than ever to immigrate into the United States as immigration laws, security laws, government organizations, and panic among the American people contributed to this post 9/11 (Deepa Iyer and Jayesh Rathod, “Vol. 29, No. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012, Pro Bono and Community: 9/11 and Immigration Law and Policy,” GPsolo (January 2012): 62-63) Knowing the terrorists who performed the 9/11 attack had immigrated to the country and were able to train for their attack ON United States soil was a major reason for a heightened focus on those immigrating to the country.

6:14:64-6:28:32: Segue: Advertisement of me talking about XtraTufs

6:29:28-9:29:10: Supporting point 3 (intelligence): 9/11 is always discussed as one of those events that could have been stopped. Well, bad usage and acquiring of intelligence is the main reason. There were pilots training to fly in the United States at a school that had known connections with Osama Bin Laden and nobody knew. The failure of intelligence is one of the most important factors to understanding how and why the attacks happened on the twin towers and Pentagon. The second major failure of intelligence by the United States after the attacks, we believed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and it was used by Bush and the government as a primary reason for us starting the war in Iraq. (NBC News, “Presidents on Meet the Press: Predictions, Explanations, and Lessons Learned,” Youtube, December 25, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwhl0_VJ1ik&t=249s). So how did this failure occur? Well, there was a lack of connectedness in the intelligence world. The United States was quick to make sure they formed new government groups to unite their intelligence in order to prevent something like 9/11 from happening again (David Morrison, “US Intelligence Reform,” in Great Decisions,ed. Foreign Policy Association, (New York City: Foreign Policy Administration, 2005): 9. ). A new focus on not only foreign intelligence but also domestic intelligence was implemented to ensure that terrorists like the 9/11 hijackers are apprehended before they can strike (Harknett and Stever). The goal was to bring together the intelligence communities that focused internationally and unite them with national intelligence agencies. The culmination of intelligence agencies felt mandatory for the US government to ensure they didn’t miss anything. This seems good, why could it have gone not as well as expected? People have always had a little bit of distrust in agencies like the FBI and the CIA because they’re sneaky, so when they started snooping around peoples lives in their own country, some people were certainly upset (Richard Harknett and James Stever, “The Struggle To Reform Intelligence After 9/11,” Public Administration Review September|October,Vol.71 No.5, ed. Foreign Policy Association (New York City: Wiley, 2011), 700, 702.). The American people's distrust was one thing, but the struggle of unification from intelligence agencies was another issue. During the Cold War, groups like the FBI and CIA moved discreetly, often not sharing information among one another. The Homeland Security Act became the base for which the new intelligence world would be built upon. The method of success for acquiring good intelligence both domestically and internationally required intelligence agencies to work with one another. The main issue with this is that agencies had to change the way they operated. The CIA was almost strictly an international operating agency and was forced to put money, agents, and time into working on acquiring domestic intelligence (Richard Harknett and James Stever, “The Struggle To Reform Intelligence After 9/11,” Public Administration Review September|October,Vol.71 No.5, ed. Foreign Policy Association (New York City: Wiley, 2011), 700, 702.). While these agencies adapted over time, it was a major shift in the way they operated, especially for a group that had very little experience in battling domestic terrorism.

9:29:70-10:24:54: Outro: Well there it is folks. 9/11 one of the worst moments in history isn’t just about the destruction of the two twin towers and the crash into the pentagon. 9/11 directly resulted in domestic and foreign changes by the United States that still impact our country and the world today. One domino led to all this craziness. The main goal for today is that you will now have a new look at the significance of 9/11. The reality is, the main goal post 9/11 was to stop terrorist groups from harming the United States and other countries, and in turn it inevitably completely altered our government, dragged us into a long war, and changed the way we handle and acquire intelligence. While lots of the steps and decisions were positive, minus the Iraq War, terrorist attacks still happen in our country more than they should, and the 9/11 attack was only the beginning of an uphill battle for the United States. I appreciate all of you for listening, and I hope you enjoy the other podcasts. Thank you very much.