Where were you on September 11, 2001?

[self_inflicted 70]

[diamondback 56]

When Netanyahu called it "Wakeup Call From Hell", he was more right than he knew--I was roadtripping with a "frat brother" for his 21st birthday (which just happened to be that day). Shock, loss of appetite, then just white-hot pissed--wanted to reach down OBL's throat, pull up his guts and strangle him with them.

 

Still want to, for that matter...

 

SI, thank you for your service. "Aim High!"

[janusthephoenix 24]

1) This was the very first thing I thought of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvj6zdWLUuk

2) Holy crap, you're younger even than me.

3) I was largely unaffected on that day, partly because of blinding self-interest and partly because there was no way I could comprehend at the time what it all meant.

4) A good friend of mine is also AF Security Forces. Keep up the good work, and stay safe.

[22_Shooter 1,560]

-I was in class, and they turned on a TV as it was happening (before the second plane hit), and we all stopped what we were doing and watched. They were still saying it was an accident. Then, reports of the other hijacked planes started coming in.

 

-Pretty much disbelief. I didn't really know what to think. I was 18 at the time and hadn't witnessed such an event up until that day. I couldn't (and still can't) imagine what anyone directly involved was going through. Whether they were in the towers, on the planes, running up trying to save people, running out trying to escape......or any of the friends/relatives of any of them. Then, of course, an anger set in. Mixed in with feelings of sorrow for all of the victims and their families.

 

-I feel the same way now, as I did back then, as far as the event itself. Except, like most, the feeling of patriotism is stronger. My family and I went to Ground Zero one year after the fact. It was definitely an eye opening experience to be at a place where so many people had their lives taken, and/or gave theirs up for the sake of others. My sister took some great black-n-white pictures of the infamous cross-beams that still stood, in the exact shape of a cross. I'm not much of a religious person, but that was some heavy stuff to see. Even today, if I catch any of those memorial shows, and it has a slideshow with pics/names of those who died...........it chokes me up like crazy.

 

 

 

(SI, I don't see anything that can even remotely be seen as "inappropriate" or "over the top" in your post. Props to you for joining up, and thanks for your service. )

[volkov 318]

I was in school.. we had this one kid who used to say china was attacking us every other week.. so he starts running around campus saying the pentagon has exploded, the white house has been anihilated and china has a nuke in-bound.. We all essentially told him to go fuck himself, but then more and more rumors started circling.. we went into class, turned it on just in time to see the second plane hit.. I remember the first tower collapsing and all the girls cryng.. and as I look behind me this same prick seems to think he's in a movie now, and does the stereotypical movie mouth wide open in disbelief shake of the head.. but his eyes were lit up like it was christmas.. I woulda hit him if I hadn't been so mixed up at the time having just watched all those people die.. Was my dad's birthday too, we've never gathered to celebrate a birthday with such a crappy attitude hanging in the air.. It wound up in an arguement and my dad driving off for a minute or two right in the middle of birthday dinner.. we all just had too much built up emotion. Rotten day to say the very least..

 

But the day I saw tanks rolling over that fuckers little country is another day I'll never forget.. and when we invaded iraq.. Those were days I felt proud.. If you kill a couple thousand americans, you can expect two countries to get invaded.. thats a good message in my book, and the type that prevented furthur attacks... until a new administration anyway.

[paprotective 362]

In Manhatten working down on 11th Ave near Broad and the Empire state and Train station.

 

Was early and co-worker had radio on and I heard the announcement something hit one of the trade buildings. I was on the phone with my sister whom was watching TV at the time. She asked if I was OK and I told her I was no-one near there. Went to ring my wife (whom was 8 months pregnant) and phones were OUT..

 

Penn Station was locked down till 3pm. Had to walk downtown around 4 to catch a train back to NJ. No CELL service till we hit NJ's edge.

 

Sucked. People whom you don't know on the morning train to NY were simply gone... All the small talk between no-body's just GONE.. Sucked/Sucks.

[Bvamp 604]

Well, I got up like any other day, dont watch tv, so i didnt have on the news, left my ratty ass apartment to go get coffee or something (I dont even remember what the hell I was GOING to do) and I start up my camaro, and the first thing I hear is " a second plane just hit the other tower" and I kind of sat there for a second listening, and I pretty much knew what was going on. woke up the rest of the apartment complex that wasnt already awake with a treat of coming out of the driveway in 3rd gear with both rear wheels spinning....those tire marks were there for a couple years till the place was re-paved, actually.....came up to a traffic jam and saw all the old people at the diner looking across the street at something...couple of towelheads were out front of thier gas station burning a flag and dancing...well, not for long they werent....troopers pulled up and kept their guns on THEM (not like they needed a gun at that point, I had them "under control"), not the 6 foot 3 pissed off motherfucker with the hood prop swinging and told me to get outta there....stopped at mom's house made some calls, found out the f15's at nellis had just taken off in full afterburner (not a normal thing at ALL), and that my uncle phil was the usual AA pilot for the boston to LA route (first day off in 13 days but didnt know that till later in the day), made one of the worst phone calls of my life to one of my best friend's mothers to advise her to tell her husband whom works RIGHT there to NOT go outside "just in case because another form of attack was anticipated while the crowds are out in a panic". got yelled at the next day when i saw him, then thanked a couple of minutes later. got to a friend's house, woke them the hell up and got the TV turned on just in time to see the towers fall....

 

anyway, thats enough for me, Im getting HIGHLY pissed off just recalling that morning. that wasnt the end of my day, by any means, though.

 

september 11th was my recently deceased grandmother's birthday, and her comment about the whole thing was "someone is going to lose thier country over this".

 

If im out and about that day, I will still buy cops coffee or lunch if i happen to see any wherever I happen to be, and when they are surprised I remind them what day it is, and say "Im from NY....no, thank YOU".

 

 

...dont piss Yankees off, cause we are known to burn half of our own country down when we get mad

[jkimes 0]

I was just leaving for work when the first news of this hit the TV. I remember walking through the house on my way out the door and seeing the first tower hit and the video replaying. At the time, they were reporting that it was a small commuter plane, but as soon as I seen the video, I could tell it was a large airliner. I remember telling my mom that "there's no way thats a small commuter plane, thats a freakin 767!" I'm a big fan of anything flying, so just from the somewhat blurry video, I could tell the silhouette was anything but a small commuter plane. At the time, I worked on a farm that was only a mile away, so I didn't leave until 850ish, by the time I got to work and got started for the day, the farmers wife told us that a second plane had hit the other tower. A surreal silence followed for most of the day as we wired up a portable radio and listened. Conversations were nothing spectacular, and nobody was joking about anything as we usually would. We ended up down in the pumpkin field for a few hours and did not have any batteries to put in the radio, so we didn't hear much for a while. When we got in the truck to head back to the barn, thats when the terrifying news hit us, that both towers had fallen. I remember the rest of the day, with the news of the other two planes, the heroics of the flight 93 passengers, and the somber/depressed attitudes of everyone at work. I remember the days following, with all flights being grounded.

 

Thank you for your service, and for this post.

 

A day that should not, and will not, ever be forgotten.

[rastamanila 313]

I was in a Southeast Asian food court here in Manila. My girlfriend and I had just purchased food from a very friendly Indonesian woman. I got the text message from the guy I was supplying cigars to in Davao City. His text was like "Are you watching this? A plane has flown into the World Trade Center." At this time I was confused because here in Manila we have a two story exhibition hall building that is in the Manila Bay area and also somewhat near the airport called "The World Trade Center". I was thinking how could that happen it's a really low building. Then my friend said "No man, the one in New York". At this point both of us were thinking this was a terrible accident. I even thought at some point that it was a light plane. Then the second plane hit and everyone knew this was on purpose. Then the buildings fell...

 

I must say I was sickened by the reactions of some of your countrymen.

 

Some people were saying shit like:

 

"This is what we get for all those things we've been doing all these years all over the world."

 

and shit like:

 

"We have to reexamine our Foreign Policy so that people around the world don't hate us and pull this shit."

 

I was like "Hey Man WTF?!? Where are your heads at? This was an act perpetrated by EVIL fucking people perverting the religion of Islam. You guys should be getting on your horses and going out and hunting and KILLING these evil bastards.

 

I guess some of your countrymen are not used to living with terrorism and Islamofascism.

 

Well in the Philippines it's a fact of life. When shit like that happens to us we go out and take some heads and "send a message" that we ain't tolerating that kind of evil bullshit.

 

I thought of all my New Yorker friends and my friends all over the Eastern Seaboard.

 

I was White Hot Pissed and kept saying "Someone's going to pay...and Pay, Pay, Pay!!!"

 

[VanKiller 322]

I was in Moyock N.C............CGW was getting inspected....

 

I was pissed, and I still am........

[Bayoupiper 738]

Well, I got up like any other day, dont watch tv, so i didnt have on the news, left my ratty ass apartment to go get coffee or something (I dont even remember what the hell I was GOING to do) and I start up my camaro, and the first thing I hear is " a second plane just hit the other tower" and I kind of sat there for a second listening, and I pretty much knew what was going on. woke up the rest of the apartment complex that wasnt already awake with a treat of coming out of the driveway in 3rd gear with both rear wheels spinning....those tire marks were there for a couple years till the place was re-paved, actually.....came up to a traffic jam and saw all the old people at the diner looking across the street at something...couple of towelheads were out front of thier gas station burning a flag and dancing...well, not for long they werent....troopers pulled up and kept their guns on THEM (not like they needed a gun at that point, I had them "under control"), not the 6 foot 3 pissed off motherfucker with the hood prop swinging and told me to get outta there....stopped at mom's house made some calls, found out the f15's at nellis had just taken off in full afterburner (not a normal thing at ALL), and that my uncle phil was the usual AA pilot for the boston to LA route (first day off in 13 days but didnt know that till later in the day), made one of the worst phone calls of my life to one of my best friend's mothers to advise her to tell her husband whom works RIGHT there to NOT go outside "just in case because another form of attack was anticipated while the crowds are out in a panic". got yelled at the next day when i saw him, then thanked a couple of minutes later. got to a friend's house, woke them the hell up and got the TV turned on just in time to see the towers fall....

 

anyway, thats enough for me, Im getting HIGHLY pissed off just recalling that morning. that wasnt the end of my day, by any means, though.

 

september 11th was my recently deceased grandmother's birthday, and her comment about the whole thing was "someone is going to lose thier country over this".

 

If im out and about that day, I will still buy cops coffee or lunch if i happen to see any wherever I happen to be, and when they are surprised I remind them what day it is, and say "Im from NY....no, thank YOU".

 

 

...dont piss Yankees off, cause we are known to burn half of our own country down when we get mad

 

 

 

 

We need to remember this kind of stuff too!

 

As I recall, the media covered up all these incidents.

 

But they did happen.

 

And here is an eyewitness account!

[Bayoupiper 738]

As for where I was, I was sitting on the couch in my Lt. Colonel's office with several others watching it on television.

[Frankyoz 15]

I was Dove hunting with my GySgt we came across an old man and he said,"He you guys from the base? You might want to go back we have been attacked." I remember I didnt beleive him I thought he just wanted our hunting spot. However I went back to my jeep to check my radio and sure enough. It was utter disbelief at first then oh shit, tore outta there picked up my Gunny and off we went. By Dec 1st I was on a ship heading to Afghanistan.

[Razorback 72]

I was sitting on a park bench doing my reports in the airport at La Guadia in NYC. I flew in the night before on business, and the airline had delayed my flight, and diverted my flight to land at La Guardia, instead of JFK. I couldn't get a rental car, because the rentals were closed and it was midnight. I could have got a room, but for $100.00 a night for a 4 hour nap didn't appeal much to me. I remember between 6:00am and 7:00am the wind was barely blowing, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and I remember thinking what a beautiful day this was going to be. I called into work and explained about the rental car, and was instructed to go to the Brazilian Consulate and get a visa. I was going to be in South America the following week. I went to laptop lane and sat down in front of a pc while waiting on a fax to come thru with my visa application. Later my phone rang and my co-workers who were in Arkansas called me and asked if I was still in NYC. I said, I was, then they said a small plane had flown into the World Trade center. I immediately told them to grab their bug out bags and go to the hill. Our term for our pre-selected meeting spot in case of trouble. They started laughing at me, and hung up, or more probably the cell service dropped my call. Then I checked again on my fax, and gave my manager a different fax line number, when I saw the second plane hit the tower on TV. I was shocked, but since my friends had already tipped me off, my mind was already wrapped around a doomsday scenario where the US was under attack, and I was 2000 miles from my family, and everything I had prepared in case we were ever attacked. Not a good place to be, far away and unarmed. I got my stuff and left laptop lane and went outside to see what I could see from La Guardia. On the catwalk bridge in front of the airport, there was a taxi stopped, and a gentleman with a head-wrap (Indian I was thinking at the time) and a 35mm movie camera filming the towers on fire. This really struck me as odd, but I removed my camera and started taking pictures. As the 1st tower fell, I heard myself saying over and over "Oh My God". I would hear my own words again 2 years later when I watched a movie about that day. I believe it was on the audio from the camera on that catwalk bridge. I wound up getting the last rental car from Hertz right after they ran everyone out of the Airport, there was mild panic as people poured out of the airport. I called 1 of my best friends who had moved to Greenwich, Ct, and we met there. Then I got a call from my company around 1:30pm, and was instructed to go to Manhattan and get some equipment from the AT&T building across from ?140 West street. I asked my boss what planet he was on that morning, and he said" I know what is going on Mon!, and told me to get the equipment or I'm fired. So I went in to Manhattan and got the equipment, and later assisted at the telephone office at Garden City to restore some downed ATM lines, cause most of Manhattan was dead in the water on phone and power. My wifes father had died 2 days before and I was to be in the funeral, and now was stuck in NYC. Then my company told me I was on my own. No perdeim, or pay, or work, since all of the Phone offices by now were in lock down. I couldn't leave, and couldn't work. I also had just purchased a new home in North West Arkansas, and was unable to come home to the funeral or to close on my house. I finally did get a flight out of Hartford, Ct, I flew home, washed my cloths, and loaded up, drove to Houston and flew to Brazil. The NSA put everybody with a return flight out of NYC area, ( La Guardia, JFK, Newark, and several others, maybe Boston Logan, my return was 9-11-01 from JFK) on a Terrorist Watch List. Well after spending 3 hours with the Brazilian Secret Police in a little room trying to explain why my Gary Larson Far Side calendar, that was opened to September, had a plane, with the windshield blown out, dead pilot at the yoke, and a poodle jumping in to save the day. Caption reads, " At the last minute FIFI jumps in to save the day. Weird coincidence, and my very poor grasp of the Portuguese didn't help matters any. They finally asked me to sign a paper that I couldn't read, and they couldn't tell me what it said in English. Their English was at least as bad as my Portuguese was, so I signed it and was escorted to my plane. I have never been so happy to be the last person to get on a plane before in my life. This kinda makes me think of what my parents must have felt on Dec. 7, 1941. Wow, I really must have needed to get that off my chest, guess it's been hid away too long. Thanks for the topic.

[Nailbomb 10,221]

I was at MCRD Paris Island, and didn't find out untill later. Even when I was told we all figured it was just another mind game...

 

Even when the newspaper articles came in and we realized it was true, Lets face it, I had things right in my face to worry about.

[chevyman097 2,579]

It was my sr year of high school. I was in the office(was an aid so I could get out a class early lol) I remember one of the teachers coming in all frantic and in a panic talking about it. They flipped on the tv and I got to watch it till I got done then I went home and watched the rest. I remember you could get within a block of any gas station for miles due to everyone in a panic to get gas...like that was going to save them...

[Paulry 50]

I was on the 25th floor of the Hyatt Hotel down town Philadelphia for a trade show. I was ironing my pants watching the "fire" in the first tower and saw the second plane slam into the other tower LIVE! On the local news feed from New York they had a live helicopter shot and I could see in the back ground the low flying second airliner as it crossed the river and slammed into the WTC! I was screaming at the TV as I watched the plane come in. They shut down the entire city. Was trapped in Phily for days! It was creepy driving across the country then when there was no planes in the sky!

[Arik 565]

I was asleep. I had worked a double shift, came home around 6am and passed out before my head hit the pillow. Throughout the day my cell phone kept ringing. I saw it was my dad but I was too tired to pick up and see what he wanted. I figured he just wanted me to pick up something since he knew I was off that day. But the calls didnt stop. Every 15 minutes or so. Finally I picked up thinking maybe he had an emergancy. His first words were "why arnt you picking up??!?!?!" followed by "turn on the TV!!!!" I sat at home the rest of the day glued to the tv.

[Juggernaut 11,054]

Just getting in the door from dropping my kid off at school.... Wife called from work telling me to turn on the TV....

[Bvamp 604]

Well, I got up like any other day, dont watch tv, so i didnt have on the news, left my ratty ass apartment to go get coffee or something (I dont even remember what the hell I was GOING to do) and I start up my camaro, and the first thing I hear is " a second plane just hit the other tower" and I kind of sat there for a second listening, and I pretty much knew what was going on. woke up the rest of the apartment complex that wasnt already awake with a treat of coming out of the driveway in 3rd gear with both rear wheels spinning....those tire marks were there for a couple years till the place was re-paved, actually.....came up to a traffic jam and saw all the old people at the diner looking across the street at something...couple of towelheads were out front of thier gas station burning a flag and dancing...well, not for long they werent....troopers pulled up and kept their guns on THEM (not like they needed a gun at that point, I had them "under control"), not the 6 foot 3 pissed off motherfucker with the hood prop swinging and told me to get outta there....stopped at mom's house made some calls, found out the f15's at nellis had just taken off in full afterburner (not a normal thing at ALL), and that my uncle phil was the usual AA pilot for the boston to LA route (first day off in 13 days but didnt know that till later in the day), made one of the worst phone calls of my life to one of my best friend's mothers to advise her to tell her husband whom works RIGHT there to NOT go outside "just in case because another form of attack was anticipated while the crowds are out in a panic". got yelled at the next day when i saw him, then thanked a couple of minutes later. got to a friend's house, woke them the hell up and got the TV turned on just in time to see the towers fall....

 

anyway, thats enough for me, Im getting HIGHLY pissed off just recalling that morning. that wasnt the end of my day, by any means, though.

 

september 11th was my recently deceased grandmother's birthday, and her comment about the whole thing was "someone is going to lose thier country over this".

 

If im out and about that day, I will still buy cops coffee or lunch if i happen to see any wherever I happen to be, and when they are surprised I remind them what day it is, and say "Im from NY....no, thank YOU".

 

 

...dont piss Yankees off, cause we are known to burn half of our own country down when we get mad

 

 

 

 

We need to remember this kind of stuff too!

 

As I recall, the media covered up all these incidents.

 

But they did happen.

 

And here is an eyewitness account!

 

 

yeh, well, the local radio station got threatened by the sheriff it would be shut down if they didnt stop reporting where these incidents were happening.

 

I will say this, you dont want to get attacked by a ripping pissed hick carrying a 4 foot 2x2 walnut hood prop....i really thought I was going to get arrested for the next two weeks for that one, but noone ever came...for that, at least....I dont know how bad I hurt those two, but they werent moving when I left them in the cop's hands.....the rest of my "retaliation" im not talking about, but there is a lot more to my story that didnt stop there....I took this act and still take this shit as a personal attack on me, my family, and my friends, and that is something you do not want to do.....

 

I have only gotten that mad once before in my entire life, and I have a vague recollection of the onlookers applauding as I left at mach 2, but I really am not sure because I was in a blind rage at that point, and I dont recall much for the next few minutes after that....I try to not think about this kind of sht, because my blood starts to boil when I do, and I dont like being angry like that.

 

anyway, someone asked, quite seriously, so there you go, theres an hour or so of my day that day....you did not want to be anywhere NEAR me until at least noon that day....I wasnt saying "oh my god" or "holy shit", either

 

 

 

 

I wanted blood, and i still want blood

 

 

 

 

 

 

.those motherfuckers

 

 

 

guys? there is one thing i get REALLY MAD about, and this is it.

[DogMan 2,343]

I worked late the night before and was sleeping. I got a call from my brother and he asked me "how I was doing" based on what was happening. I asked him what he was talking about and he told me to turn on the TV. This was after the second plane hit so I knew it was a terrorist attack. What I kept thinking is "it finally happened" and "I wonder what took them so long". I had been expecting them to do something on this scale or worse. Before that day though, when you would tell someone that they would just smile and shrug their shoulders. People can't seem to conceive of what they haven't seen before. I saw lots of security people scrambling like ants after that, But there might as well have been none. The event was over. People seemed to be almost hysterical with their focus on security which is understandable but I knew it was all too little too late. We let it happen because incredibly nobody had figured out that you have to build a door that won't allow bad people into the cockpit of a plane, and God forbid you can't let pilots have guns. Because of that, Four Walmart box cutters changed the world forever. Don't worry, we'll make the same mistake again in a different way.

[Vultite 57]

It was my senior year of high school and I was sitting in a classroom where the teacher happened to have the T.V. set on the news...a newsflash came up as first the trade center having a fire, then report came in that it was a plane had hit it, and as the live feed was rolling I saw the second plane hit the tower and I thought "wtf is going on??" then all the other events unraveled and everyone at school was dumbfounded for #1 this has never happend before, and #2 how did we allow this to happen?. Many of my buddies graduated and immediately went into the war, while my other friends including myself went into firefighting/ems or police....

[shaneman153a 39]

I had just enlisted 4 months earlier, and was in AIT at the time. Because we had no seniority, the DS's wouldn't let us watch the news.... Didn't really get the full scope of it until I saw pics on the newspaper the next day. Our CO lit up that Drill Sergeant for not letting us watch.

 

I had orders to go to Korea but the next day they were pulled for Germany. I thought for sure I would see Afghanistan but we didn't actually get deployed until a year and a half later, to Iraq.

 

It was great there for a few months when everyone was in "Support Our Troops" mode, but I knew it wouldn't last, and I was right. Only 2 years later I was sitting in Iraq watching americans burn flags on TV.

 

And you wonder why we get out...

[6500rpm 670]

I work in a shop for a large car rental company at the airport. I remember going into the break room after the first plane hit and telling one of the rental agent that there was no way in hell that was an accident. About a minute later I watched the second one slam into it removing all doubt. It was a trip for us because we had to get everything on the road so people could make it home after the mass landings. The REALLY odd sensation was the complete lack of usual noise from the airport on the following days. I still tear up with pride when I think about the brave souls on flight 93 that refused to go without a fight. They set the standard for future peices of shit that try to pull this crap and like many of our young men who are TRUE American Hero's.

[Sly 233]

I was in the shop, just finished a service. walked into the lobby to talk to the customer. He was fixated on the tube, and didnt care if his oil change turned into a total engine rebuild. The tube was showing the first tower smoking. When the second plane hit, I had to go back into the shop and called home. I told the fam to arm up and call the ext fam. We went on alert.

 

As for what we did, vs what we wanted to know?

 

We buckled down. And waited on info. And today 2-9-10? we are still waiting.......

 

Why did "Egyptian's" attack the usa? Why did we go into a "police" action against Iraq, and Afghanistan?

 

And not "Egypt"?

[kope007 14]

I was in class at the fire academy. We all watched the events unfold on a little TV n the lab. One of our instructors brother worked in the tower. So it hit home very quickly seeing his face and watching him try to hold it together as he made frantic phone calls.we learned the next day His brother was able to get out physically unharmed. Then our class of rookie fire fighters learned about what the fdny did and while we all might have internally questioned our chosen career path not one of my twenty five classmates dropped out. Of anything our resolve was strengthened.

[JulianH 4]

We buckled down. And waited on info. And today 2-9-10? we are still waiting.......

 

Why did "Egyptian's" attack the usa? Why did we go into a "police" action against Iraq, and Afghanistan?

 

And not "Egypt"

 

Actually, most of the alleged hijackers were Saudi. I say "alleged", because some of them turned out to be alive in Europe or the middle east, and were not on the planes at all...

 

But yes, what the fuck are we doing in Iraq, when there is absolutely no tie between Iraq and 9/11 at all?

[Nailbomb 10,221]

We buckled down. And waited on info. And today 2-9-10? we are still waiting.......

 

Why did "Egyptian's" attack the usa? Why did we go into a "police" action against Iraq, and Afghanistan?

 

And not "Egypt"

 

Actually, most of the alleged hijackers were Saudi. I say "alleged", because some of them turned out to be alive in Europe or the middle east, and were not on the planes at all...

 

But yes, what the fuck are we doing in Iraq, when there is absolutely no tie between Iraq and 9/11 at all?

Iraq is not tied to 9/11 at all. Let me refresh your memory, because the real reason was all over the news and somehow this got twisted around...

 

Back in the early 90s we had this thing called the "Gulf War". One of the end effects of this was Sanctions against Iraq. That second wiki article is accualy very interesting, as it is a much earlier introduction of a few key words we heard a lot about when we went back to iraq. For example, I'll remove a few quotes.

 

"Their stated purpose was at first to compel Iraq's military to withdraw from Kuwait and after that to compel Iraq to pay reparations, and to disclose and eliminate any weapons of mass destruction, and to do certain other things."

 

"The UN Resolutions had the express goals of eliminating WMDs and extended range ballistic missiles, prohibiting any support for terrorism, and forcing Iraq to pay war reparations and all foreign debt."

 

Now the key points here are all the WMD speak, and "support for terrorism". That was a very common thing to hear over the news right befor we jumped into...

The Iraq War

 

"In 2002, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1441 which called for Iraq to completely cooperate with UN weapon inspectors to verify that Iraq was not in possession of WMD and cruise missiles. "

 

Of course Saddam was a huge prick and couldn't fully cooperate with the inspectors...

 

This is where it gets twisted around...

 

"Some US officials also accused Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of harboring and supporting al-Qaeda,[52] but no evidence of a meaningful connection was ever found.[53][54] Other proclaimed reasons for the invasion included Iraq's financial support for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers,[55] Iraqi government human rights abuses,[56] and an effort to spread democracy to the country."

 

Now to get more to the root of why we accualy jumped back in I'm going to pull from the Wiki article on Colon Powell

 

"Powell came under fire for his role in building the case for the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. In a press statement on February 24, 2001 he had said that sanctions against Iraq had prevented the development of any weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein. As was the case in the days leading up to the Persian Gulf War, Powell was initially opposed to a forcible overthrow of Hussein, preferring to continue a policy of containment. However, Powell eventually agreed to go along with the Bush administration's determination to remove Hussein. He had often clashed with others in the administration, who were reportedly planning an Iraq invasion even before the September 11 attacks, an insight supported by testimony by former terrorism czar Richard Clarke in front of the 9/11 Commission. The main concession Powell wanted before he would offer his full support for the Iraq War was the involvement of the international community in the invasion, as opposed to a unilateral approach. He was also successful in persuading Bush to take the case of Iraq to the United Nations, and in moderating other initiatives. Powell was placed at the forefront of this diplomatic campaign.

 

 

Computer-generated image of an alleged mobile production facility for biological weapons, presented by Powell at the UN Security Council. On May 27, 2003, US and UK experts examined the trailers and declared they had nothing to do with biological weapons.[26]Powell's chief role was to garner international support for a multi-national coalition to mount the invasion. To this end, Powell addressed a plenary session of the United Nations Security Council on February 5, 2003 to argue in favor of military action. Citing numerous anonymous Iraqi defectors, Powell asserted that "there can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more."[27] Powell also stated that there was "no doubt in my mind" that Hussein was working to obtain key components to produce nuclear weapons.[27]

 

Most observers praised Powell's oratorical skills. However, Britain's Channel 4 News reported soon afterwards that a UK intelligence dossier that Powell had referred to as a "fine paper" during his presentation had been based on old material and plagiarized an essay by American graduate student Ibrahim al-Marashi.[28][29] A 2004 report by the Iraq Survey Group concluded that the evidence that Powell offered to support the allegation that the Iraqi government possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) was inaccurate.

 

A Senate report on intelligence failures would later detail the intense debate that went on behind the scenes on what to include in Powell's speech.

 

You see we intercepted some bad intelligence and that was the reason for everyone to jump onto the invade iraq bandwagon. I've heard rumors that the message was a weapon capability report intended for saddam hussein. The report was innacurate however as Saddam suposedly was holding the lives of the weapons program members families over there heads to produce results... As a result they lied to him to keep everyone alive.

 

I hope this answers your question about why we are in Iraq as it has nothing to do with 9/11.

[self_inflicted 70]

[TYBOY 33]

I was in Chunchon, South Korea working as a contractor for the US ARMY. I felt helpless watching this happen from the other side of the World to my Country. The interesting effects at Camp Page where I was working were NO MORE PROTESTERS. The everyday Protesters that were out at the front gate with their body billboards ( english facing post and korean towards traffic ) were not there. It may have had something to do with the Humvee and 50 cal now manning the front gate.

 

I too feel very angry and think that we should never forget. I always feel kind of strange when people discuss where they were (considering I was OCONUS).