History

10 Events Surrounding
Fri
September 11
August 27,
2010 Comments
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by Bryan J

People all over the world are familiar with what happened on September 11, 2001. On that
morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four US commercial passenger jet airliners and
intentionally crashed two of them into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. The Twin
Towers collapsed within two hours of being struck by the planes. Civilians from over 70
countries were killed in the attacks, with a total of 2,995 casualties. In the months before and
after September 11, many important international events occurred. On October 7, 2001, the US
military’s Operation Enduring Freedom was launched, starting the War in Afghanistan. This list
will be documenting ten news stories and international events surrounding September 11, 2001.

10
Enron Scandal Revealed
Most Americans are familiar with the failure of the Enron Corporation. Enron was an American
energy company based out of Houston, Texas. In 2000, Enron was one of the largest businesses
in the world. They had working operations in many areas, mainly electricity, natural gas,
communications and pulp and paper. Amazingly, Enron claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion
in 2000. The problems for Enron started from the beginning, when a group of executives in the
company began misleading the board of directors and audit committee. They did this by hiding
billions of dollars in debt, acquired from failed deals and projects. In the months following 9/11,
the illegal activity caught up with Enron and the company failed. Enron stock holders lost nearly
$11 billion, and the resulting scandal marked the largest bankruptcy reorganization in American
history at that time.

The Enron scandal ended the business career of accounting firm Arthur Andersen. Arthur
Andersen Corporation was found guilty of unlawful practice in the auditing of Enron. In October
of 2001, one month after the attacks in New York and Washington, details of the Enron scandal
were leaked to the world press. The story sparked a panic among Enron stock holders, and by
December 2, 2001, Enron Corp. filed for one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in US history,
with assets of $63.4 billion. Because of the failure, new regulations and legislation were enacted
to expand the reliability of financial reporting for public companies. Many conspiracy theories
have been formed around the Enron Scandal, and the date on which it was revealed to the public.
Most of these claims document the ties between former Texas Governor George W. Bush and
Enron founder Kenneth Lay.

9
Executive Order 13233

In 1972, thousands of official and unofficial FBI records were destroyed, upon the death of J.
Edgar Hoover. In fact, in the past it was common practice for high ranking officials to destroy
their most important business documents. For this reason, in 1974 the US Congress passed the
Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, placing the presidential records of
Richard Nixon in federal custody to prevent their destruction. The Act was meant to reduce
secrecy at the highest levels of government, and to give historians the materials they need to
perform their duties. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 expanded such protection of
historical records. This was accomplished by mandating that all records of former presidents
automatically become the property of the federal government upon leaving the Oval Office.

The presidential papers of Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush were due to be made
public when George W. Bush took office in January, 2001. However, George W. Bush first
delayed the release for 90 days, and then repeated the action, pushing the date back into
September, 2001. On November 1, 2001, Bush issued Executive Order 13233, limiting public
access to the records of former U.S. presidents. The Bush executive order also includes the
documents of former vice presidents. Many people were critical of this action, claiming that it
violated both the “spirit and letter of existing US laws.” The order severely curtailed public
access to presidential records and added to delays in obtaining materials from presidential
libraries. On January 21, 2009, Executive Order 13233 was revoked, by executive order of
President Barack Obama on his first day in office. Obama essentially restored the original
Executive Order 12667.
During his presidency, George W. Bush was accused of acting in violation of the Presidential
Records Act of 1978. In 2007, the Bush White House e-mail controversy was revealed. The
event started when George W. Bush initiated the, unprecedented, midterm dismissal of seven
United States Attorneys on December 7, 2006. The U.S. attorneys were replaced with interim
appointees, under provisions in the 2005 USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization. Following the
action, a congressional request was called looking for documents indicating why the attorneys
were fired. This caused the Bush administration to reveal the fact that not all internal White
House emails were available, because they were sent via a non-government domain, that was
hosted on an e-mail server not controlled by the federal government. In 2009, it was announced
that as many as 22 million emails may have been deleted by the Bush administration.

8
2001 Atlantic Hurricane Season
Hurricane Erin was the first, and longest lived, hurricane in the 2001 Atlantic hurricane season.
The storm developed from a tropical wave on September 1, 2001, and by September 9 it
strengthened into a full blown hurricane. Hurricane Erin passed within 100 miles of Bermuda,
and created nasty weather and rip currents along the East Coast of the United States. On
September 11, Erin decelerated as it turned to the east, but the hurricane would gain power over
Canada and not dissipate until September 15. It is an interesting story because many flights and
air traffic control workers were directly affected by Hurricane Erin. The storm produced 6 foot
swells off the coast of North Carolina.

The second hurricane of the 2001 season struck on September 12, 2001. The storm is named
Hurricane Felix and it originated 1,500 miles (2414 km) south of the Azores. Felix did not
impact land, but caused weather problems for boats and aircraft. Hurricane Gabrielle was the
third hurricane recorded during the 2001 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm developed on
September 11, 2001, in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico. By September 13, Gabrielle intensified
and accelerated northeastward toward Venice, Florida. On September 14, the storm made
landfall near Venice, Florida, and was soon categorized as a hurricane. Hurricane Gabrielle
caused heavy rainfall and bad weather conditions in Florida, Alabama, Bermuda and Canada.
Three people were reported to have died in the storm, and it caused $230 million in damages. It
is truly unfortunate that the September 11th terrorist attacks fell in line with a string of high
powered hurricanes.

7
Abnormal Stock Trading

In the week prior to 9/11, an “extraordinary” amount of put options were placed on United
Airlines and American Airlines stocks. If you are unfamiliar with the stock market, a put option
is financial contract between two parties that will offer the buyer insurance against a company’s
excessive loss. Someone who purchases a put option is expecting a stock to drop or they are
protecting their assets. Between September 6 and 7, 4,744 put options were purchased on United
Airlines stock, compared to 396 call options. On September 10, 4,516 put options were
purchased on American Airlines, as compared to 748 call options. The trading activity was 600%
above the normal level. United and American Airlines were the only two companies who had
planes hijacked on 9/11. There were also an abnormal number of put options purchased in
companies who had a stake in the World Trade Centers.

The majority of the suspicious trading was linked to Deutsche Bank Alex Brown. On September
12, 2001, the head of the bank, Mayo A. Shattuck III, resigned from office. The previous director
of the bank was A. B. Krongard, who is the former head of the CIA. Citigroup Inc and Morgan
Stanley also received an abnormal number of put options, and both companies held offices in the
World Trade Centers, and saw a decrease in stock price after the attacks. On September 10,
2001, Raytheon, a defense contractor, had an anomalously high number of call options traded.
The Securities and Exchange Commission launched an insider trading investigation, in which
Osama Bin Laden was a suspect, but no action was taken. The trading was traced to areas all
over the world, with most activity occurring in the UK, Italy, Germany, Japan, Switzerland,
France and the US.

In the days prior to 9/11, the Chicago Exchange saw the highest number of United and American
Airlines options traded in history. The names of the investors remain a mystery, because they
never claimed their money. After it was discovered that a single U.S.-based institutional investor,
with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda, purchased a large amount of these options, the 9/11
Commission dismissed the importance of the events. Unfortunately, the abnormal trading did not
tip off law enforcement, as intelligence agencies constantly monitor the stock exchange and the
sudden rise in activity could have allowed analysts to “connect the dots” and see that a major
event was about to take place involving American Airlines, United Airlines and The World
Trade Centers. However, nobody could have imagined the scale of the tragedy.

6
Death of Ahmad Shah Massoud
In 1979, the Soviet Union began their ten year long conflict with Afghanistan. Ahmad Shah
Massoud was a military leader that played a leading role in driving the Soviet army out of
Afghanistan in the late 1980s. His military prowess made him a hero in Afghanistan, earning him
the nickname Lion of Panjshir. During the war, Massoud was known for his strategic and mass
ambushes against Soviet and Afghan convoys. In 1983, the Soviets offered Massoud a truce,
which he accepted. He then turned his attention to expanding the Afghan resistance movement,
and liberating the northern provinces of Afghanistan. Massoud’s military forces were considered
the most effective of all the various Afghan resistance movements.

In the middle of the 1990s, the Taliban took control of approximately 90 percent of Afghanistan.
In response, Massoud formed an alliance to fight the Taliban, and provided shelter for people
fleeing Afghan cities. However, on September 9, 2001, two days prior to 9/11, Ahmad Shah
Massoud was killed by a suicide bomber at Khwaja Bahauddin, in Takhar Province, northeastern
Afghanistan. The assassins may have intended to attack several Northern Alliance council
members simultaneously because others were killed. Prior to his death, Massoud had warned the
European Parliament that a terrorist attack was evident. The timing of the assassination is
considered significant by people who believe Osama bin Laden ordered the murder, and wanted
Massoud dead before staging the 9/11 attacks. Ahmad Shah Massoud died a national hero, and
hundreds of thousands of people attended his funeral. The date of his death, September 9, is
observed as a national holiday in Afghanistan, known as Massoud Day.

5
US Government Exercises

On September 11, 2001, the United States government held a series of military exercises and
drills. Operation Northern Vigilance was a NORAD operation, which involved deploying fighter
aircraft to the northwestern part of North America, specifically Alaska and Northern Canada.
The exercise was one part simulation, one part real world. It was in response to a similar test
acted out by Russia on September 11, where long-range bombers were dispatched to Russia’s
high north. The exercises were immediately called off after the news of the terrorist attacks and
all simulated information was purged from NORADs computer screens. However, the event was
a distraction for the US government on 9/11.

Operation Northern Vigilance was not the only US exercise planned for September 11. A series
of war games were also acted out, specifically Global Guardian. Global Guardian is an annual,
command-level exercise held in the United States. It is an important task, and the purpose of the
drill is to test and validate US nuclear command, control and execution procedures. Vigilant
Guardian is an exercise that was run in conjunction with Global Guardian. It involved a
simulated bomber attack from the former Soviet Union. The drill was conducted in real time, and
appeared legitimate in offices and on computers, but without any planes in the air. One of the
drills included was a traditional simulated hijacking.

The National Reconnaissance Office drill that was being conducted on September 11, 2001, is
the strangest. In the exercise, a simulated small aircraft crashed into one of the towers at the
NRO headquarters. No plane was involved in the drill, but to simulate damage from the crash,
some stairwells and exits were closed off. A bioterrorism exercise was planned for September
12, 2001. It was named Operation Tripod and included a real life test of the US plan to distribute
antibiotics to an entire city population during a bioterrorism attack.

4
Nimda Virus
In the months before and after September 11, 2001, the United States was bombarded with a
series of cyber attacks. A group of criminals exposed vulnerabilities in the Microsoft operating
system, and created a buffer overflow virus, which executed arbitrary code and infected
hundreds of thousands of computers. By July 19, 2001, the amount of infected hosts reached
over 350,000 zombies. A series of separate viruses named Code Red I and Code Red II crippled
valuable servers and made calculated attacks on US government computers.

On September 18, 2001, a new virus attacked United States operating systems. The worm was
given the name Nimda, and it was an advanced version of Code Red II. Some might say that the
Code Red viruses were created in preparation for the much larger Nimda attack, which was
executed the week following the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Due to the
release date of the virus, members of the American government speculated on a link between the
cyber attacks and Al Qaeda, but this theory ended up proving unfounded. The American media
did not report much on the virus because of the terrorist attacks.

Multiple propagation vectors allowed Nimda to become the Internet’s most widespread and
dangerous virus. It took only 22 minutes for the worm to rip through the American financial
sector, causing over $3 billion in damage. The Nimda virus was so effective because it used five
different infection vectors. People could, and still can, get the virus via e-mail, open network
shares, infected websites, exploitation or via back doors left behind by the Code Red II virus.
The group of people behind the Nimda virus and the theft of billions of dollars are unknown. The
event greatly damaged the world’s financial sector and economy.

3
Wave of Accidents
In the months following September 11, 2001, there was a wave of international accidents and
events. On September 21, 2001, the AZF chemical factory located near Toulouse, France
exploded. The event occurred when three hundred tons of ammonium nitrates ignited. The blast
left a crater at the depth of 20 to 30 m (65 to 100 ft), with a diameter of 200 m (650 ft). It was a
major incident in France, and 29 people were killed. The event is recognized as an environmental
catastrophe, and the total damages already paid by insurance groups are exceeding 1.5 billion
euros. The blast is believed to have occurred due to the improper handling of ammonium nitrate,
including the mixing of chemical impurities. However, on October 2, 2001, France’s then
Environment Minister, Yves Cochet, announced that the explosion “may have been a terrorist
attack” and identified Hassan Jandoubi as a person of interest.

On October 4, 2001, Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 crashed over the Black Sea. The plane was en
route from Tel Aviv, Israel to Novosibirsk, Russia, and all 78 people aboard were killed. The
crash was initially thought to be a terrorist attack, since an Armenian plane near the scene
reported seeing the Russian plane explode before it crashed into the sea. However, American
intelligence reported that the crash was due to an errant S-200 surface to air missile fired as part
of a Ukrainian Air Defense Forces exercise. Many people have labeled this hypothesis unlikely,
considering the missiles range and safety features, claiming that the US was in fear of mass
hysteria with yet another terrorist attack in the weeks following September 11. Ultimately, the
government of Ukraine officially recognized their military’s fault in the accident and started
negotiating compensation payments for victims’ relatives.

On November 12, 2001, the United States experienced its second deadliest aviation accident in
history. It occurred when American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into a Belle Harbor
neighborhood of Queens, New York. The accident took place two months after the September 11
terrorist attacks, and it caused panic in New York. Thousands of people witnessed the Airbus
A300 crash to the ground, killing all 260 people on board. Many people reported a fire and
explosion before the plane crashed, but the National Transportation Safety Board attributed the
disaster to the first officer’s overuse of rudder controls. Al-Qaeda has listed the crash among its
successes, but physical evidence was never presented indicating terrorist activity. Surprisingly,
the story was widely underreported in the United States, considering the magnitude of the crash.
In the months after the tragedy, rumors were circulated that suggested that the plane was
exploded by a shoe bomber, similar to the failed attempt of Richard Reid, but these claims are
unsubstantiated.

2
2001 Anthrax Attacks

Most people are familiar with the wave of anthrax attacks waged against the United States in the
weeks following September, 11. Beginning on September, 18, a group of letters containing
anthrax spores were mailed to US media outlets, and the offices of two US senators. In all, five
people were killed in the terrorist activity, and seventeen others were seriously affected. The
letters addressed to the US senators, Democrats Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Patrick Leahy
of Vermont, were laced with a highly refined dry anthrax powder. Shortly after the first wave of
attacks, two letters were sent to the New York Post and NBC News. The letters contained threats
mentioning 9/11, and implied a new wave of terrorist activity. For this reason, it was highly
reported in America that Al-Qaeda was behind the 2001 anthrax attacks.

On September 11, George W. Bush and the White House staff began taking a regimen of Cipro,
which is a powerful antibiotic. This activity has led to a list of conspiracy theories accusing the
US government of having pre-knowledge of the anthrax attacks. The investigation into the
crimes was one of the longest and most complex in the history of law enforcement. Ultimately,
investigators began to focus their attention on an American scientist named Bruce Edwards Ivins.
Ivins worked at the US government’s biodefense labs at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland.
After extensive research, on August 6, 2008, federal prosecutors declared Bruce Edwards Ivins
to be the sole culprit of the 2001 anthrax attacks. He committed suicide on July 29, 2008, after
learning that he was going to be formally charged with the crimes. One would think that a media
circus would have ensued, but little was mentioned about Bruce Edwards Ivins in the US press.
His motives for blaming the attacks on Al-Qaeda are unknown.

1
USA PATRIOT Act

On October 26, 2001, US President George W. Bush enacted the USA PATRIOT Act. The bill
was in direct response to the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11. The goal of the Act
was to reduce restrictions on law enforcement and government officials when investigating
criminal activity. It gave international law organizations the right to probe and search citizen’s e-
mail, medical, financial and personal records. Some of the main sections of the law enacted
restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering, expanded the Secretary of the Treasury’s authority
to regulate financial transactions, and broadened immigration laws in regards to detaining and
deporting immigrants suspected of terrorism-related acts. The bill was passed by a wide margin
in the US Congress. It was supported by some people and seen as an attack on civil liberties by
others.

Entire websites have been dedicated to examining the Patriot Acts apparent lack of safeguards
surrounding the rights of American citizens and foreign advocates. The bill made significant
amendments to over 15 important constitutional statutes. The sections of the Patriot Act
discussing Internet supervision and monitoring are confusing and extensive, ultimately reaching
far beyond simple e-mail correspondence. One of the most surprising aspects of the USA
PATRIOT Act is the lack of public and media debate regarding its introduction. Before
September 11, provisions of the Act related to electronic surveillance were proposed and highly
debated. However, many people feel that the Patriot Act has helped make America a safer place
and stopped terrorist activity. In the first part of 2010, Barack Obama signed a one-year
extension on several provisions in the Patriot Act.