• World Trade Centers collapse after planes hit, 10,000 emergency workers head to scene.
  • 8:48 a.m: The first attack a large plane, possibly a hijacked airliner, crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Center towers, tearing a gaping hole in the building and setting it afire in Manhattan.
  • 9:06 a.m.: A second plane, apparently a passenger jet, crashes into the second World Trade Center tower and explodes.    Both buildings are burning.     Both towers later collapsed.    At 10:05 a.m.: The south tower of the World Trade Center collapses, plummeting into the streets below.    A massive cloud of dust and debris forms and slowly drifts away from the building.    Building hit by debris near the World Trade Center is on verge of collapse.
  • 10:30 a.m.: The north tower of the World Trade Center collapses from the top down as if it were being peeled apart with a tremendous array of debris and smoke.
  • In New York, more than 10,000 rescue personnel rushed to the scene.    Lower Manhattan is being completely evacuated.
  • 9:35 a.m.: New York Port Authority orders all bridges and tunnels in the New York City area closed.
  • U.S. stock markets were closed after the New York attacks.
  • 10:53 a.m.: New York's primary elections scheduled for today are postponed.
  • 11:02 a.m.: New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani urges citizens to stay at home and orders an evacuation of the area south of Canal Street.
• At 9:43 a.m.: An aircraft crashes into the Pentagon, sending up a huge plume of smoke, part of the Pentagon collapses.    Evacuation begins immediately.
  • "A plane hit the building," David Cook, director of administration and management at the Pentagon, the world's biggest office building.    Eyewitnesses told local television stations that a commercial airliner appeared to have smashed into the side of the building, which is near the Potomac River running through Washington and close to Washington National Airport.    "I saw the tail of a large airliner. ... It plowed right into the Pentagon," said an Associated Press Radio reporter.    "There is billowing black smoke."    Gray smoke billowed from the five-sided building.    The more than 20,000 civilians and military men and women who work in the building streamed into the surrounding car parks, driven by blue-and-white strobe lights and wailing signs.    It was not immediately clear whether Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was in the building at the time of the crash, which occurred on the southwestern side of the complex.    Lisa Burgess, a reporter for the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes, said she was walking in a corridor near the blast site and was thrown to the ground by the force of the blast.    Sirens wailed as the whole building was evacuated.    CNN Military Affairs Correspondent Jamie McIntyre reported that the Pentagon had gone to "threat condition Delta," which is implemented when "a terrorist attack has occurred or intelligence has been received that action against a specific location is likely," McIntyre said.
  • Fighters jets scrambled to intercept what was reported to be second aircraft headed toward the area around the Pentagon, but the second aircraft never appeared.
• American, United both confirm losing two planes each.
  • 11:18 a.m.: American Airlines told CNN that it lost two planes, both en route to Los Angeles:
    • American Flight 11, a Boeing 767 flying from Boston to Los Angeles, had 81 passengers and 11 crew aboard.    This is believed, but not confirmed, to have been one of the planes that crashed into the trade center.
    • American Flight 77, a Boeing 757 from Washington Dulles airport to Los Angeles with 58 passengers and six crew is unaccounted for.    The jet that crashed into the Pentagon may have been this one, but that is still unknown.
  • 11:26 a.m.: United Airlines lost two planes:
    • United Airlines Flight 93 airliner headed from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco, crashed near Somerset, Pennsylvania -- police said initial reports indicated no survivors.    At 10:10 a.m.: United Airlines Flight 93 crashes in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, southeast of Pittsburgh which was confirmed at 10.48 a.m.
    • United confirmed the crash of Flight 175 from Boston to Los Angeles with 56 passengers and seven crew aboard.    It's possible, but not confirmed, that this is the second plane that hit the World Trade Center.
• Bush calls trade center crashes terrorist act.
  • 9:39 a.m. President Bush is to convene a national security meeting immediately upon his return to Washington.    The president has spoken with Vice President Dick Cheney and New York Gov. George Pataki.
    • President Bush calls the crashes "apparent terrorist attacks" and "a national tragedy."    Bush is to issue a statement from Barksdale AFB in Shreveport, Louisiana.    American officials say their "working assumption" is that the attacks in New York and Washington are acts of "overseas terrorism."    They have added they cannot rule out additional attacks.    Officials say they had no intelligence beforehand that a massive terrorist plot was under way.
  • 10.46 a.m.: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell cuts short his trip to Latin America to return to the United States.
• United Nations, the Pentagon, the White House, the State Department, the Justice Department, the Capitol, the CIA and all other federal and government buildings in Washington are evacuated.
  • 9:45 a.m.: The White House evacuates.    At 10:08 a.m.: Secret Service agents armed with automatic rifles are deployed into Lafayette Park across from the White House.
  • 10:13 a.m.: The United Nations building evacuates, including 4,700 people from the headquarters building and 7,000 total from UNICEF and U.N. development programs.
  • 10:22 a.m.: In Washington, the State and Justice departments are evacuated, along with the World Bank.
  • 10:45 a.m.: All federal office buildings in Washington are evacuated.
  • There were also reports of a fire on the National Mall, a stretch of open, green space between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. That report was not immediately confirmed.    At the White House, employees ran out of the executive mansion as police cleared it.    Aides said a "credible threat" against the White House had come in.    At first, the evacuation was orderly but, under orders from the Secret Service, employees were soon ordered to run out of the gates.    Officers, some with automatic rifles, were lined outside the White House.    From Pennsylvania Avenue, CNN Correspondent Kate Snow reported that members of Congress were evacuating the Capitol grounds.    At the State Department, a senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the incident at State appeared connected with the events in New York and at the Pentagon.    "Something has happened at the State Department," the source said. "We don't know what yet."    A voice on the building loud-speaker system said there was a fire in the building, but reports on that were sketchy as sirens blared throughout the building.    One official said there may have only been a fire alarm pulled. People were allowed into the building only to retrieve secure information.
  • Following the World Trade Center incident, a State Department official told CNN they will be involved in determining who carried out these attacks.    State Department officials sent cables U.S. embassies worldwide, advising representatives at each that they could decide their security posture and determine whether to remain open.
  • The Immigration and Naturalization Service has put the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada on highest state of alert.
  • FEMA implements plan established for such events: FBI leads investigation, Justice Dept. heads crisis management.
• FAA grounds all U.S. flights, sends trans-Atlantic flights to Canada.
  • 9:51 a.m.: The FAA halts all flight operations at U.S. airports, the first time in U.S. history that air traffic nationwide has been halted, and stopped at their departure airports.
  • 10:24 a.m.: The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reports that all inbound transatlantic aircraft flying into the United States are being diverted to Canada, however, that 22 U.S.-bound international flights would be allowed to land.
  • Los Angeles International Airport has been evacuated.
• 10:54 a.m.: Israel evacuates all diplomatic missions and embassies around the world.
• NATO sent home all non-essential personnel from its Brussels, Belgium, headquarters.
• Taliban issues statement to tell U.S. 'Afghanistan feels your pain.'
  • ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, Afghanistan's Taliban ambassador to Pakistan has condemned the string of astonishing terrorist attacks on the United States, and said in reaction to the news of the terror attacks that "we want to tell the American children that Afghanistan feels your pain and we hope that the courts find justice."
  • There have been a number of denials of responsibility by Palestinian groups and by the Al Quaida group headed by fugitive Saudi accused terrorist Osama bin Laden.    U.S. officials say they have no credible claim of responsibility. Angered U.S.    The Taliban has in the past angered the U.S. for giving sanctuary to wanted Saudi dissident bin laden, described by Washington as "the world's most wanted terrorist."    Apart from the embassy bombings, U.S. officials also link bin Laden to last year's bombing of a U.S. navy ship in Yemen and with foiled plots in the United States and Jordan at the turn of the millennium.    The Taliban sprang from religious schools in Pakistan near the Afghan border and, with almost no military experience, swept from obscurity to their 1996 capture of the capital in only two years.    Beyond Pakistan, the Taliban have few friends.    Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates are the only other countries to recognize the Taliban as the legal government, but they have not joined Pakistan in maintaining embassies in Kabul.
• World shock over U.S. attacks.
  • 11:16 a.m.: CNN reports that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta was evacuated and is preparing bioterrorism teams to respond to the incidents in a precautionary move.    The preparation is not based on any known bioterrorism threat, only in case they become necessary.
  • Philadelphia landmarks were also evacuated.
  • In Chicago, the Sears Tower was evacuated; United Nations in New York evacuated.
  • Kennedy Space Center, LAX, Disney Florida parks closed.
    • All Disney parks in Orlando, Florida, and Disneyland in Anaheim, California have been closed.

• 2/12/2003 - Bin Laden, on tape, calls for Arabs to unite by Robert H. Reid, The Associated Press.
      Doha, Qatar -- After the U.S. bombing in Tora Bora in December of 2001.    Bin Laden is believed to have escaped death or capture despite intense American bombing of the stronghold in eastern Afghanistan.
      On tape aired by the Al-Jazeer satellite television station the purported voice of Osama bin Laden tells his followers throughout the Arab world to help Saddam Hussein fight Americans even though his government is of "infidels," words U.S. officials said showed the Iraqi leader's ties to the al-Qaida terror network.    He said it was acceptable for Muslims to fight on behalf of Iraqi "socialists" because "in these circumstances" their interests "intersect in fighting against the Crusaders," or Christians.    He also urged Iraqis to stage suicide attacks and lure American troops into bloody urban battles to inflict "big casualties."
      Secretary of State Colin Powell said the comments, broadcast on the first day of the major Islamic holiday Eid al-Adha, bolstered U.S. allegations that Iraq is harboring al-Qaida operatives.    "This nexus between terrorists and states that are developing weapons of mass destruction can no longer be looked away from and ignored," Powell told the Senate Budget Committee.
      Most experts cannot believe this possible, since Saddam's government adheres to a Pan-Arabic socialistic doctrine called Baathism.
      Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan claimed the United States was using the al-Qaida allegation as a pretext for war, "They are looking for oil, for Arab oil and want to protect the Zionist entity that usurped the land of the Arabs."
      In the Persian Gulf more than 113,000 U.S. troops are massing for a possible attack on Iraq.
      In Washington, CIA Director George J. Tenet said intelligence information suggest al-Qaida may launch attacks as early as this week in both the United States and on the Arabian peninsula, and it may involve a "dirty bomb" -- a weapon that spreads radioactive material over a wide area - or chemical or poison weapons.
• 7/13/2003 - Shadow of America looms over globe, to much dismay by Barry Renfrew, The Associated Press.
      London -- History has seen many superpowers, from the empires of Rome and ancient China to the vast colonial conquests of Britain and France.    But never has a single nation so dominated the planet as America at the start of the 21st century.
      The eyes around the world worry that America is a superpower out of control, "unrestrained by any laws or any conventions other than its national interest," said James Rubin, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state who lives in London.
      In the wake of the Iraq war, even some of America's closest friends and allies worry that too much power and influence has fallen into the hands of one nation.    They fear the consequences for the international political system and for humanity.
      "It does worry me that we are in a world today where we only have one huge superpower which does not need anybody and can follow whatever policy it wants," said Axel Poniatowski, a conservative member of the French parliment.
      American power is indeed enormous.    Its armed forces circle the planet, dwarfing the strength of other nations.    The American economy is the biggest player in the global marketplace.    American ideas and culture are everywhere, whisked by movies, television and the Internet to every corner of the world.
      With the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, no other nation or likely alliance of nations can match American power.
      And America's critics worry about what the United States will do with that power.    Since George W. Bush became president, they have watched with mounting concern as America spurned the Kyoto protocol on global warming, rejected the standing of the international criminal court to try Americans, shunned arms control treaties.
      All, they say, with an arrogance that told the rest of the world it didn't matter.    Traits that make Bush popular at home, such as simple, straight talk, can appear frightening abroad.    Top officials such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld add to the apprehension with their bluntness -- a bluntness some critics interpret as disdain for the views of other nations.
      "We are all rather uncomfortable with Bush -- our pro-American loyalty has been quite heavily strained by the Bush administration," said Menzies Campbell, a leader of the Liberal Democrats, a British opposition party.
      Of course, few nations see America as a threat to their sovereignty.    Many foreign critics of American policy consider America a relatively benign superpower.    There is no suggestion, except in the most paranoid circles, of U.S. ambitions to conquer the world.
      "We don't need to dramatize these problems," said Vladimir Baranovsky, deputy director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow.
      But at the same time, there is rising unease about America, and risisng criticism of the sole superpower.    "The imperious and arrogant in Washington believe the rights of man come not from God but from the generosity of Uncle Sam," wrote The New Straits Times in Malaysia.
      Growing anti-Americanism, based on ignorance about the United States, who is seen as a battleground populated by gun-crazed gangsters and murderers, a land where a few have immense wealth amid poverty and suffering, a nation that does not value learning or culture.
      Washington is blamed for everything from gloabl warming to genetically altered crops, even as the world does its best to emulate American lifestyles.    Abroad, McDonald's and Starbucks are madly popular and yet often the first targets in any political protests.
      Many Americans are deeply unhappy about the same problems that foreigners blame on Ameirca, such as ill effects of globalization.
      Still the concern around the world that Washington wants only to serve American interests -- that its only interest in other countries is how they can boost U.S. security and prosperity.
      The U.S. attack on Iraq crystallized those fears, even among many of America's friends, such as France and Germany.    America's motivation -- born in the attacks of Sept. 11 -- is not widely embraced or understood.    Many around the world don't comprehend how deeply the attacks shook the United States, shattering its sense of security.    Though many Americans believe they are locked in a war for survival, Europeans, especially, saw it as just another terrorist attack.    In some quarters, America was seen as wanting war at any price, trampling international bodies and laws designed, no matter how imperfectly, to avoid war and ensure peace collectively.
      Is America willing to remain first among equals, many wonder, or has collegiality been replaced by a raw, menacing assertiveness some saw in America's campaign against Saddam Hussein?
• 7/25/2003 - Missile defenses: Better safe than sorry by Peter A. Brown, Syndicated Columnist.
      If anyone ever doubted that governmental policy choices have life-and-death consequences, the war with Iraq should settle the matter.    That's why when the inevitable debate begins again over development of an anti-ballistic-missile system, let's remember the track records of those who instictively oppose new weaponry as wasteful.    If Iraq isn't lesson enough, the potential threat from North Korea should give pause to those who argue that missile defenses aren't needed because the real threat to national security is just from terrorists.
      Remember that the next time you hear the usual suspects complain about the "military-industrial complex" taking us down the wrong road.
      The United States didn't quickly defeat Iraq with a minimum loss of life because it has the world's largest armed forces.    It prevailed because of the money U.S. taxpayers invested in military technology, often after bitter, usually partisan, battles about the alleged redundancy of weapons systems, and their lower relative priority for government funds.
      Regardless of whether Dwight Eisenhower was correct a half-century ago to worry about the ability of the Pentagon and its contractors to hijack U.S. foreign policy when he coined the "military-industrial complex" phrase, today the issue is clear.    America's unmatched ability to fight at night, use computer-guided weapons with sophisticated targeting and meld communications and military technology define the military state of the art.
      Thank God that the United States has that capability and is not a nation with delusions of dominating the world.
      But it's critical in the future that we don't just rest on our laurels.    Keep that in mind when some politician, as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow, runs for Congress or the presidency by criticizing the Pentagon budget as bloated, and suggests the nation would be better off spending the money on more bureaucrats or social programs.
      Voters in democratic societies, and not just the United States, are legendary for their short memories when the shooting ends.    It is human nature to assume that every conflict is the last one, and to want government to put a higher priority on domestic needs.
      The Bush administration wants to go full-speed ahead with development of an anti-missile-defense system.    The issue has been a political hot potato for two decades since President Reagon first backed the idea.    Pentagon critics have derided it as unworkable and unnecessary.
      The opponents first argued that, with the demise of the Soviet Union, there are no nations with nuclear warheads and the delivery system to threaten the United States.    They have also claimed the technology is not available to shoot down incoming missiles.    But the record of U.S. technology in the Iraq war in shooting down shorter-range missiles, and the success of U.S. efforts to develop weaponry generally, is ample evidence the project deserves its chance to become the next gadget that allows us to sleep better at night.

Last updated August 13, 2003.