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

Running head: THE 9/11 ATTACK IN AMERICA
The 9/11 Attack in America
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1THE 9/11 ATTACK IN AMERICA
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

2THE 9/11 ATTACK IN AMERICA
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