World Trade Center, terrorist attack

As Steve Bowman stated in his article "Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) The Terrorist Threat," the term weapons of mass destruction is a former Soviet military term which was euphemistically used to denote nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. It is now widely used despite debate over its appropriateness, and its definition has broadened to include radiological weapons. For some, particularly in the wake of the World Trade Center airliner attacks, the term WMD has come to include any means capable of inflicting mass casualties."... 

On Monday, March 11, 2002 — six months to the day of the September 11 terrorist attack on America — the Huffman Aviation flight school (Venice, Florida) received student visa approval forms for Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, a part of the United States Justice Department, permitting the pair to live and study at a flight school six months after they had flown two separate commercial airliners into the World Trade Center killing upwards of 3,000 people. Is that horrific mistake justice, or incompetence for the more than 3,000 America citizens who died in this single attack or incompetence ... 

It is interesting to note that McVeigh, who was no doubt suffering from some type of severe disturbance, acted primarily alone. Actually, McVeigh is the exception that proves the rule—most terrorist acts on America are planned by a group beforehand. However, this is not always the case. For example, consider the case study that follows—an incident that occurred in 1992, before McVeigh, before the first attack on the World Trade Center, before 9/11, and prior to the anthrax attacks. 

This view is from court testimony on terrorism from Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who helped organize the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center ... 

A right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures is declared by the Fourth Amendment, but how this right translates into substantive actual terms is not specified. Traditional constitutional and statutory legal analyses of the Fourth Amendment are heavily affected by rapidly changing societal values, fears, and security interests after the World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. 

Recent events, including the World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have induced rapid fundamental changes from historical perspectives of constitutional rights and governmental interests. Necessary questions to ask are (1) does the technology, practice, and procedure make society safer or provide an illusion of safety (2) is the privacy intrusion proportional to the security benefit and (3) are there other demonstrable less privacy intrusive methods available that attain the same objective. 

Urea nitrate secured its place on the U.S. landscape by being the explosive used in the World Trade Center (WTC) bombing in February of 1993. Although it was not commonly seen in the United States at the time, terrorist groups in other parts of the world had long since known about it. Both the Shining Path in Peru and numerous mideastern terrorists utilized UNi in their attacks well before the WTC incident. The use by the Shining Path was so predominant that sales of urea were outlawed in Peru in 1992 to curtail explosive production. 

September 11 Terrorists linked to al-Qaeda destroy the World Trade Center in New York and damage the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., killing about 2,800 people. Although no guns were used in hijacking the airliners used in the attack, the disaster will be used both to justify and oppose new gun control measures. 

Since the terrorist attack on New York s World Trade Center, discussions about the global exchange of disease have often focused on bioterrorism. In response to a possible bioterrorist release of smallpox, the U.S. government has stockpiled vaccine and implemented a largely unsuccessful program to vaccinate first responders (Gursky and Parikh 2005). Yet, if smallpox reappears, it will likely do so from the laboratories in the world s most scientifically developed nations. When it comes to infectious diseases, each part of the world threatens and is a threat to its neighbors. 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2002b). Rapid assessment of injuries among survivors of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center—New York City, September 2001. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 51(1), 1-5. 

The attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) on September 11, 2001 caused the largest acute environmental disaster in the history of New York City (Lioy et al, 2002). As a result of this terrorist attack, combustion of more than 90,000... 

Wildlife problems ean occur after a terrorist attack. For example, gulls Lams spp.), crows (Corvus spp.), rats (Rattus spp.), and mice Mus spp.) can become a nuisance in areas used for erime seene investigations (Chipman et al, 2002). Such a problem occurred after the September 11, 2001 attaeks on the World Trade Center. Control measures are required to enable investigations to be conducted without the danger of attacks on humans and the destruction of evidence. The need for wildlife control in an emergency could be unforeseen in emergency planning. 

Chipman, R.B., Preusser, K.J., Gansowski, J.T. et al. (2002). Emergency wildlife management response to protect evidence associated with the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, New York City. Proceedings of 4th Bird Strike Committee -USA/Canada Meeting. University of Nebraska, Sacramento, CA, October 21-24, 19 pp. (www.birdstrike.org). 

Fire statistics collected by NFPA indicated that 1 687 500 fires were reported in the United States in 2002, the latest year for which complete statistics are available at the time of this writing. Calculated another way, these statistics translate into a reported fire occurring in the United States every 19 s, in an outside property every 38 s, in a structure every 61s, in a residence every 67 s, and in a motor vehicle every 96 s. These fires caused 3380 civilian deaths and 18 425 reported injuries in 2002. Excluding New York City s World Trade Center deaths from the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in which 2326 civilian deaths occurred, the number of deaths in 2002 decreased by almost 10% from the previous year. However, there still was one civilian fire death every 156 min and one fire injury every 28 min. The number for injuries is believed to be less than the actual number, since many injuries are not reported. The property loss due to fires in 2002 is estimated at 10.3 billion dollars and indicates a decrease of 2.2% from the previous year, if one excludes the World Trade Center deaths from the 2001 numbers. 

Based on historical observations, mass sociogenic illness might follow a real or threatened terrorist event involving chemical, biological or radiologic materials (3). Shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, minor events were sufficient to cause mass anxiety. On September 29,18 days after the World Trade Center attack, paint fumes at a middle school in Washington State,... 

Studies following two recent terrorist attacks in the United States, the April 1995 Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing and the September 11 World Trade Center attack in New York City, have shed some additional light on the mental health outcomes following terrorist events. 

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