The 9/11 Attack in America: Impact, Security Developments, and Counter-Terrorism Measures

In this discussion we will discuss about the 9/11 attack in america and below are the summaries point:-  The 9/11 Attack in America: Introduction to the coordinated terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, resulting in massive casualties and long-lasting transformations in American life. The 9/11 Attack in America: Discussion on the security developments and measures implemented after the attack, including improved anti-terrorism intelligence and enhanced homeland security. The 9/11 Attack in America: Focus on the significance of intelligence and coordination in preventing terrorist attacks and the ongoing efforts to enhance counter-terrorism measures.

Running head: THE 9/11 ATTACK IN AMERICA
The 9/11 Attack in America
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1. Introduction
The September 11 attacks or say, the 9/11 attacks were a large series of four
coordinated terrorist attacks from the part of the Islamic terrorist group called al-Qaeda,
against the U.S. on the morning of September 11, 2001. This attack had killed around 3,000
people and brutally injured 6,000 others along with a vast destruction of property and
infrastructure (Hegghammer and Nesser 2015). Moreover, many individuals died because of
the cancer caused after this attack within a year. However, the decade after this attack
reshaped most of the facets of life in America. Some of the changes were temporary, while
some proved to be the long lasting transformations in the life of Americans. Since the 9/11
attack, the issue of terrorism has been emerged as one of the significant threats to the
international security, especially the ever increasing rise of the Islamic State of Iraq as well as
the ISIL/Da’esh or Levant. This report is going to elaborate on the main security
developments since the 9/11 attack in America. The main security developments after this
attack in Washington would he highlighted in the discussion part of this report on the basis of
relevant data and information of most recent period.
2. Discussion
After the 9/11 attack in United States, the frightened and horrified public of America
wanted something more to be done for protecting their country from the attacks of terrorist.
In response to such an overpowering public sentiment and to the huge sense of vulnerability
that was revealed by the successful strike of Al Qaeda against the U.S, the urgency of putting
in place some certain sets of measures made the Bush Administration scrambled in order to
answer the public concerns and for improving the ability of the nation for coping up with the
issue of terrorism (Kuurzman 2018). However, it is to note that these agenda of measures that
followed were considered as a significant program for the “Homeland Security”. There are

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certain efforts made for enhancing this Homeland Security since the 9/11 attacks and some of
the most significant of them are discussed below:
2.1. Improved anti-terrorism intelligence
It is to note that the prevention against the attacks of terrorist depends completely on
the intelligence. It is obvious that if in case the terrorists keep themselves as well as their
intentions hidden, then it is literally impossible to stop them. The nightmare of the U.S that
was threatened by the act of terrorism is a long series of some unpleasant surprises of
terrorist. With the same, the challenge of improving the counter-terrorism intelligence is one
of the important concerns of the homeland security. Notwithstanding these facts, the Bush
Administration have identified warning and intelligence as the integral cornerstone of its
efforts for protecting the U.S from the threat of terrorism (Immerman 2016). Ever since then,
it has taken various initiatives for improving the analytical capabilities and for facilitating the
coordination of the intelligence and intelligence agencies. With the same, it has also given
thoughts to the problem of converting the intelligence into warning and then, warning into
some really effective action. At the same time, it has tried for mapping out an explicit and
sensible allocation of the responsibilities among the agencies. Moreover, the latest
development is when President Bush ordered the development and creation of Terrorist
Threat Integration Centre which would involve the FBI, CIA, the Attorney General, the
Department of Homeland and the Defence Department (Lynch 2016).
2.2. Monitoring the points of entry
Vast amount of material and vast number of people pour into the U.S regularly. There
is each and every prospect that, just like it was in the past, the terrorist would get an entry
into the U.S in completely open and legal way. However, ever since the 9/11 attack, the
process of obtaining the US visas has got much tightened (Wadhia 2016). There is a higher

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scrutiny of the international visitors at the passport control as well. With the same, there is at
present a great interest of the U.S government in improving and enhancing the port security
and in the imposing of more serious verification and monitoring of the goods that are being
shipped. Also, the use of modern technology too now are monitored such as the tracking
technologies and bar coding in order to follow the shipments from the source to the recipient.
Also, there has been a great interest of the Bush Administration in providing some
organisational and technical means to detect the WMD and the other weapons which might
be used in the terrorist attacks. However, in all these initiatives taken, the main ideal is to
prevent the terrorists as well as their weapons from getting an entry into the U.S.
However, it is also to mention that the illegal and open entry of the goods and people
into the U.S. is likely to be even more worrying. As the U.S has remote borders and lengthy
coastlines, it undergoes a huge challenges in its way of preventing the illicit crossings of the
boarders. Some of the very serious efforts have been made over several years, in relation to
the illegal immigration and drug trafficking in order to strengthen the border patrols and for
making the entry in the U.S. more risky and difficult (Bevis 2016). On the other hand, there
are some other progress made along the border of US-Mexico but no one seems to think that
the protection of the boarders is never sufficient or good enough while evaluating in regard of
the threat of terrorism.
2.3. Enhancement in the Transportation security and protection of the critical
infrastructure
One of the most obvious and immediate changes prior to the 9/11 attacks is that of the
changes made in the department of air travel in the U.S. airports. Within just two months
right after the attack, the U.S Congress federalised the security at airports by passing the Act
of Aviation and Transportation Security that created the Transportation Security

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Administration (Williams, Chandler and Robinson 2018). Before the 9/11, the security had
been controlled by every airport that outsourced to the private security firms. It is to note that
the character of the 9/11 attack has made it very clear that the different modes of mechanised
transportation on which the modern society ubiquitously have its base could be transformed
into different weapons in the hands of the terrorists. It was very clearly true for the aircrafts.
However, it is not that difficult for conceiving the attacks that use the trains or boats or the
large trucks. With the same, the new TSA implemented the processes which included very
strict guidelines on the luggage screening and passengers. Only the ticketed passengers could
go through the security as well as from the ever-changing array of processes and machinery
were introduced for scanning for the destructive items and weapons.
One of the significant strategies selected by the Bush Administration has focused on
protecting the crucial infrastructures. It is indeed a very important approach for limiting the
protective efforts to a manageable rate. Also the government has made some efforts for
ensuring that cyber security would take place and the American crops and the food supply
would be protected. The Bush Administration has also launched the Transportation and
Aviation Security Act as well. Moreover, the International Code Council had released the
post 9/11 building code suggestions in order to make the skyscrapers safer and able to
withstand some same type of incidents foe evacuating the occupants (Mannakkara et al.
2018). The most notable changes include the addition of more number of stairways for the
structures that are taller than forty two stories and the addition of elevators in the buildings
that could be used by the people during the emergencies. With the same, they have also
included impact-resistant and fire-resistant walls for the elevator shafts along with the exit
stairways.
2.4. Government and politics

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While the Partiot Act is one of the most recognisable piece of legislation in relation to
the 9/ 11 attack, about 135 pieces of legislation related to the 9/11 were introduced in the
107th Congress in the year just after the attack along with a total of 48 bills approved and
signed into law (Sinclair 2016). Also, along with the Transportation and Aviation Security
Act, the U.S government also included the Visa Entry Reform Act and the Enhanced Border
Security Act that required the Immigration and the State Department to share the immigrant
data and Visa with one another. With the same, the subsequent years had also brought in the
launch of the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill that gave huge amount of educational funding to the soldiers.
Along with this, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 have
provided about 4.2 billion dollars for the health of the people who worked at the Ground Zero
at the time of and after the attacks.
2.5. Deportations, Immigration and Tourism
Deportations as a whole increased by 104% from the year 2001 to the year 2010 as
per the data provided by the Department of the Homeland Security. It is to mention that the
region with the highest number of deportation proportion was the Central America that had
seen 430% of increase, going from 14,452 deportees to about 76,603 (Slack et al. 2016). With
the same, Asian countries have also undergone a shift of 34% increase in the rate of
deportations. Moreover, deportations from the people from Europe increased by 205%- the
highest increase. It is to note that the nation with significant drop in the Visa Issuance
after the 9/11 attack was Pakistan. In the year 2002, the total number of tourist visas that were
given to the Pakistani citizens fell about 70% and along with this, the immigrant visas too,
have dropped more than 40% as compared to the year 2001 (Iglicka 2016). It was not until
the year 2008 that the immigrant from Pakistan as well as the tourist visas to reach the pre
9/11 level. With the same, the Morocco and the Egypt too have seen very sharp drops in their
total number of visas issued in the year 2002, although both of these nations have rebounded

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since. The international tourism to the American countries fall for 3 consecutive years after
the year 2001 and this is basically because of the 9/11 attacks. However since 2004, it started
to increase again and have surpassed the pre-2001 numbers in the year 2007. In the year
2010, about 60 million foreign tourists had visited and at the same time, the total number of
Americans who travelled international borders also decreased after the same.
3. Conclusion
Hence from the above analysis it is to state that America is actively participating in
the international campaign of fighting against terrorism. It aid to the peacekeeping operations
and at the same time, vigorously encourage the initiatives for preventing the proliferation of
the weapons of mass destruction. Some of the major security developments in America have
been found in the field of anti-terrorism intelligence, the points of entry, the Transportation
security, and infrastructure

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References:
Bevis, T.B., 2016. Aftermath of 9/11. In Higher Education Exchange between America and
the Middle East in the Twenty-First Century (pp. 45-89). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Hegghammer, T. and Nesser, P., 2015. Assessing the Islamic State’s commitment to
attacking the West. Perspectives on Terrorism, 9(4), pp.14-30.
Iglicka, K., 2016. Major developments in Poland’s immigration policy. European
Immigration: A Sourcebook, p.263.
Immerman, R.H., 2016. Intelligence and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Political Science
Quarterly, 131(3), pp.477-502.
Kurzman, C., 2018. The Missing Martyrs: Why Are There So Few Muslim Terrorists?.
Oxford University Press.
Lynch, M., 2016. Belligerent Minimalism: The Trump Administration and the Middle
East. The Washington Quarterly, 39(4), pp.127-144.
Mannakkara, S., Wilkinson, S., Willie, M. and Heather, R., 2018. Building Back Better in the
Cook Islands: A Focus on the Tourism Sector. Procedia engineering, 212, pp.824-831.
Sinclair, B., 2016. Unorthodox lawmaking: New legislative processes in the US Congress.
CQ Press.
Slack, J., Martinez, D.E., Lee, A.E. and Whiteford, S., 2016. The geography of border
militarization: Violence, death and health in Mexico and the United States. Journal of Latin
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Wadhia, S.S., 2016. Is Immigration Law National Security Law. Emory LJ, 66, p.669.

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Williams, H.J., Chandler, N. and Robinson, E., 2018. Trends in the Draw of Americans to
Foreign Terrorist Organizations from 9/11 to Today.