Title	September 11 attacks
Caption	The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center burning, pictured from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, around 10 minutes after the second impact.
Location	New York City; Arlington County, Virginia; and near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Date	Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Time-begin
Time-end
Timezone	UTC-4
Type	Aircraft hijacking, mass murder, suicide attack, terrorism
Fatalities	Approximately 3,000 (including 19 hijackers)
Injuries	More than 6,000
Perps	Al-Qaeda led by Osama Bin Laden(see also Responsibility and Hijackers)

The September 11 attacks (often referred to as September 11th or 9/11) were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the United States on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Pennsylvania after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C. There were no survivors from any of the flights.

Nearly 3,000 victims and the 19 hijackers died in the attacks. According to the New York State Health Department, 836 responders, including firefighters and police personnel, have died as of June 2009. 184 people were killed in the attacks on the Pentagon. The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals of over 70 countries. In addition, there was at least one secondary death—one person was ruled by a medical examiner to have died from lung disease due to exposure to dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center.

The United States responded to the attacks by launching the War on Terror, invading Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, who had harbored al-Qaeda terrorists, and enacting the USA PATRIOT Act. Many other countries also strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded law enforcement powers. Some American stock exchanges stayed closed for the rest of the week following the attack, and posted enormous losses upon reopening, especially in the airline and insurance industries. The destruction of billions of dollars' worth of office space caused serious damage to the economy of Lower Manhattan.

The damage to the Pentagon was cleared and repaired within a year, and the Pentagon Memorial was built adjacent to the building. The rebuilding process has started on the World Trade Center site. In 2006, a new office tower was completed on the site of 7 World Trade Center. The new 1 World Trade Center is currently under construction at the site and, at 1,776 ft (541 m) upon completion in 2013, it will become the tallest building in North America. Three more towers were originally expected to be built between 2007 and 2012 on the site. Ground was broken for the Flight 93 National Memorial on November 8, 2009, and the first phase of construction is expected to be ready for the 10th anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2011.

Attacks

crashes into the south tower.]] footage of Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon.]] Early on the morning of September 11, 2001, nineteen hijackers took control of four commercial airliners en route to San Francisco and Los Angeles from Boston, Newark, and Washington, D.C.. At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 was crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower, followed by United Airlines Flight 175, which hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.

Another group of hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. A fourth flight, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 a.m, after the passengers on board engaged in a fight with the hijackers. Its ultimate target was thought to be either the Capitol (the meeting place of the United States Congress) or the White House.

Some passengers were able to make phone calls using the cabin airphone service and mobile phones, and provide details, including that several hijackers were aboard each plane, that mace or other form of noxious chemical spray, such as tear gas or pepper spray was used, and that some people aboard had been stabbed. Reports indicated that during two of the flights, the hijackers stabbed and killed aircraft pilots, flight attendants and in at least one case, a passenger. The 9/11 Commission established that two of the hijackers had recently purchased Leatherman multi-function hand tools. A flight attendant on Flight 11, a passenger on Flight 175, and passengers on Flight 93 mentioned that the hijackers had bombs, but one of the passengers also mentioned he thought the bombs were fake. No traces of explosives were found at the crash sites, and the 9/11 Commission believed the bombs were probably fake. One of the hijackers gave the order to roll the plane once it became evident that they would lose control of the plane to the passengers. Soon afterward, the aircraft crashed into a field near Shanksville in Stonycreek Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, at 10:03:11 a.m. local time (14:03:11 UTC).

In a September 2002 interview conducted by documentary-maker Yosri Fouda, an al Jazeera journalist, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, who are believed to have organised the attacks, stated that the fourth hijacked plane was heading for the United States Capitol, which they gave the codename "the Faculty of Law", not for the White House. They further stated that al-Qaeda initially planned to fly hijacked jets into nuclear installations rather than the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but it was decided not to attack nuclear power plants "for the moment" because of fears it could "get out of control".

Three buildings in the World Trade Center Complex collapsed due to structural failure on the day of the attack. The south tower (2 WTC) fell at approximately 9:59 a.m., after burning for 56 minutes in a fire caused by the impact of United Airlines Flight 175.

The attacks created widespread confusion among news organizations and air traffic controllers across the United States. All international civilian air traffic was banned from landing on U.S. soil for three days. Aircraft already in flight were either turned back or redirected to airports in Canada or Mexico. News sources aired unconfirmed and often contradictory reports throughout the day. One of the most prevalent of these reported that a car bomb had been detonated at the U.S. State Department's headquarters in Washington, D.C. Soon after reporting for the first time on the Pentagon crash, some news media also briefly reported that a fire had broken out on the National Mall. Another report went out on the Associated Press wire, claiming that a Delta Air Lines airliner—Flight 1989—had been hijacked. This report, too, turned out to be in error; the plane was briefly thought to represent a hijack risk, but it responded to controllers and landed safely in Cleveland, Ohio.

Casualties

until it crashed in Southern Pennsylvania on September 11]] {| class="bordered infobox" cellpadding="3" style="width:280px; font-size:90%;" |- !colspan="3"| Deaths (excluding hijackers) |- !rowspan="3"| New York City | World Trade Center | 2,606 |- | American 11 | 87 |- | United 175 | 60 |- !rowspan="2"| Arlington | Pentagon | 125 |- | American 77 || 59 |- ! Shanksville | United 93 | 40 |- !colspan="2"| Total | 2,977 |} There were a total of 2,996 deaths, including the 19 hijackers and 2,977 victims. The victims were distributed as follows: 246 on the four planes (from which there were no survivors), 2,606 in New York City in the towers and on the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon. All the deaths in the attacks were civilians except for 55 military personnel killed in the attack on the Pentagon.

More than 90 countries lost citizens in the attacks on the World Trade Center. In 2007, the New York City medical examiner's office added Felicia Dunn-Jones to the official death toll from the September 11 attacks. Dunn-Jones died five months after 9/11 from a lung condition which was linked to exposure to dust during the collapse of the World Trade Center. Leon Heyward, who died of lymphoma in 2008, was added to the official death toll in 2009.

NIST estimated that about 17,400 civilians were in the World Trade Center complex at the time of the attacks, while turnstile counts from the Port Authority suggest that 14,154 people were typically in the Twin Towers by 8:45 a.m. The vast majority of people below the impact zone safely evacuated the buildings, along with 18 people who were in the impact zone in the south tower and a number above the impact zone who evidently used the one intact stairwell in the south tower. At least 1,366 people died who were at or above the floors of impact in the North Tower and at least 618 in the South Tower, where evacuation had begun before the second impact. Thus over 90% of the workers and visitors who died in the Towers had been at or above impact.

According to the Commission Report, hundreds were killed instantly by the impact, while the rest were trapped and died after tower collapse. At least 200 people jumped to their deaths from the burning towers (as depicted in the photograph "The Falling Man"), landing on the streets and rooftops of adjacent buildings hundreds of feet below. Some of the occupants of each tower above its point of impact made their way upward toward the roof in hope of helicopter rescue, but the roof access doors were locked. No plan existed for helicopter rescues, and on September 11, the thick smoke and intense heat would have prevented helicopters from conducting rescues.

A total of 411 emergency workers who responded to the scene died as they attempted to rescue people and fight fires. The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) lost 341 firefighters and 2 FDNY paramedics. The New York City Police Department lost 23 officers. The Port Authority Police Department lost 37 officers, and 8 additional EMTs and paramedics from private EMS units were killed.

Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., an investment bank on the 101st–105th floors of One World Trade Center, lost 658 employees, considerably more than any other employer. Marsh Inc., located immediately below Cantor Fitzgerald on floors 93–101 (the location of Flight 11's impact), lost 355 employees, and 175 employees of Aon Corporation were killed. After New York, New Jersey was the hardest hit state, with the city of Hoboken sustaining the most deaths.

Weeks after the attack, the number of deaths was estimated to be over 6,000, but this turned out to be more than twice the number of actual confirmed dead. The city was only able to identify remains for about 1,600 of the victims at the World Trade Center. The medical examiner's office also collected "about 10,000 unidentified bone and tissue fragments that cannot be matched to the list of the dead". Bone fragments were still being found in 2006 as workers were preparing to demolish the damaged Deutsche Bank Building. That operation was completed in 2007. On April 2, 2010 a team of anthropology and archaeological experts began searching for human remains, human artifacts and personal items at the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island. The operation was completed in June 2010 with 72 human remains found, bringing the total human remains found to 1,845. The identities of 1,629 of the 2,753 victims have been identified. DNA profiling in an attempt to identify additional victims is continuing.

Damage

damaged by fire and partly collapsed.]] Along with the 110-floor Twin Towers of the World Trade Center itself, numerous other buildings at the World Trade Center site were destroyed or badly damaged, including 7 World Trade Center, 6 World Trade Center, 5 World Trade Center, 4 World Trade Center, the Marriott World Trade Center (3 WTC), and the World Financial Center complex and St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. The fall of the Twin Towers represented the only examples of total progressive collapse of steel-framed structures in history.

The Deutsche Bank Building across Liberty Street from the World Trade Center complex was later condemned due to the uninhabitable, toxic conditions inside the office tower, and is undergoing deconstruction. The Borough of Manhattan Community College's Fiterman Hall at 30 West Broadway was also condemned due to extensive damage in the attacks, and is slated for deconstruction.

Other neighboring buildings including 90 West Street and the Verizon Building suffered major damage, but have since been restored. World Financial Center buildings, One Liberty Plaza, the , and 90 Church Street had moderate damage. They have since been restored. Communications equipment on top of the North Tower, including broadcast radio, television and two-way radio antenna towers, was also destroyed, but media stations were quickly able to reroute signals and resume broadcasts. In Arlington County, a portion of the Pentagon was severely damaged by fire and one section of the building collapsed.

Rescue and recovery

The Fire Department of New York City (FDNY) quickly deployed 200 units (half of the department) to the site, whose efforts were supplemented by numerous off-duty firefighters and EMTs. The New York Police Department (NYPD) sent Emergency Service Units (ESU) and other police personnel, along with deploying its aviation unit. Once on the scene, the FDNY, NYPD, and Port Authority police did not coordinate efforts,

As conditions deteriorated, the NYPD aviation unit relayed information to police commanders, who issued orders for its personnel to evacuate the towers; most NYPD officers were able to safely evacuate before the buildings collapsed.

Attackers and their background

Within hours of the attacks, the FBI was able to determine the names and in many cases the personal details of the suspected pilots and hijackers. Mohamed Atta, from Egypt, was the ringleader of the 19 hijackers and one of the pilots. Atta died in the attack along with the other hijackers, but his luggage, which did not make the connection from his Portland flight onto Flight 11, contained papers that revealed the identities of all 19 hijackers and other important clues about their plans, motives, and backgrounds. By midday, the National Security Agency had intercepted communications that pointed to Osama bin Laden, as did German intelligence agencies.

On September 27, 2001, the FBI released photos of the 19 hijackers, along with information about the possible nationalities and aliases of many. Fifteen of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt (Atta), and one from Lebanon.

The FBI investigation into the attacks, code named operation PENTTBOM, was the largest and most complex investigation in the history of the FBI, involving over 7,000 special agents. The United States government determined that al-Qaeda, headed by Osama bin Laden, bore responsibility for the attacks, with the FBI stating "evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the attacks of September 11 is clear and irrefutable". The Government of the United Kingdom reached the same conclusion regarding al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the 11 September attacks.

Author Laurie Mylroie, writing in the conservative political magazine The American Spectator in 2006, argues that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his family are the primary architects of 9/11 and similar attacks, and that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's association with Osama bin Laden is secondary and that al-Qaeda's claim of responsibility for the attack is after the fact and opportunistic. Angelo Codevilla, of the same magazine, agrees with Mylroie, comparing Osama bin Laden to Elvis Presley. In an opposing point of view, former CIA officer Robert Baer, writing in Time magazine in 2007, asserts that George W. Bush Administration's publicizing of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's claims of responsibility for 9/11 and numerous other acts was a mendacious attempt to claim that all of the significant actors in 9/11 had been caught.

Al-Qaeda

The origins of al-Qaeda can be traced back to 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Soon after the invasion, Osama bin Laden traveled to Afghanistan where he helped organize Arab mujahideen and established the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) organization to resist the Soviets. During the war with the Soviet Union, Bin Laden and his fighters received American and Saudi funding, with American and most Saudi funds funneled through the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service. In 1989, as the Soviets withdrew, MAK was transformed into a "rapid reaction force" in jihad against governments across the Muslim world. Under the guidance of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden became more radical. In 1996, bin Laden issued his first fatwā, which called for American soldiers to leave Saudi Arabia.

In a second fatwā issued in 1998, bin Laden outlined his objections to American foreign policy towards Israel, as well as the continued presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War. Bin Laden used Islamic texts to exhort violent action against American military and citizenry until the stated grievances are reversed, noting "ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries." At that point, Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were in a period of transition, having just relocated back to Afghanistan from Sudan. The 1998 African Embassy bombings and Bin Laden's 1998 fatwā marked a turning point, with bin Laden intent on attacking the United States.

In late 1998 or early 1999, bin Laden gave approval for Mohammed to go forward with organizing the plot. A series of meetings occurred in spring of 1999, involving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, and his deputy Mohammed Atef. because "there was not enough time to prepare for such an operation".

Bin Laden provided leadership for the plot, along with financial support, and was involved in selecting participants for the plot. Bin Laden initially selected Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, both experienced jihadists who fought in Bosnia. Hazmi and Mihdhar arrived in the United States in mid-January 2000, after traveling to Malaysia to attend the Kuala Lumpur al-Qaeda Summit. In spring 2000, Hazmi and Mihdhar took flying lessons in San Diego, California, but both spoke little English, did not do well with flying lessons, and eventually served as "muscle" hijackers.

In late 1999, a group of men from Hamburg, Germany arrived in Afghanistan, including Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah, and Ramzi Binalshibh. Bin Laden selected these men for the plot, as they were educated, could speak English, and had experience living in the west. New recruits were routinely screened for special skills, which allowed Al Qaeda leaders to also identify Hani Hanjour, who already had a commercial pilot's license, for the plot.

Hanjour arrived in San Diego on December 8, 2000, joining Hazmi. They soon left for Arizona, where Hanjour took refresher training. Marwan al-Shehhi arrived at the end of May 2000, while Atta arrived on June 3, 2000, and Jarrah arrived on June 27, 2000. Binalshibh applied several times for a visa to the United States, but as a Yemeni, he was rejected out of concerns he would overstay his visa and remain as an illegal immigrant. Binalshibh remained in Hamburg, providing coordination between Atta and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The three Hamburg cell members all took pilot training in south Florida.

In spring 2001, the muscle hijackers began arriving in the United States. In July 2001, Atta met with Binalshibh in Spain, where they coordinated details of the plot, including final target selection. Binalshibh also passed along Bin Laden's wish for the attacks to be carried out as soon as possible.

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden's declaration of a holy war against the United States, and a fatwā signed by bin Laden and others calling for the killing of American civilians in 1998, are seen by investigators as evidence of his motivation to commit such acts.

Bin Laden initially denied, but later admitted, involvement in the incidents. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden denied any involvement with the attacks by reading a statement which was broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel: "I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation." This denial was broadcast on U.S. news networks and worldwide.

In November 2001, U.S. forces recovered a videotape from a destroyed house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in which Osama bin Laden is talking to Khaled al-Harbi. In the tape, bin Laden admits foreknowledge of the attacks. The tape was broadcast on various news networks from December 13, 2001. His distorted appearance on the tape has been attributed to tape transfer artifact. The detailed timeline of Bin Laden's having prior knowledge were revealed in a September 2002 interview documentary-maker Yosri Fouda conducted with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh: the decision to launch a "martyrdom operation inside America" was made by Al Qaeda's military committee in early 1999; Atta, after deciding on the date (9/11/01) for the attacks, informed Binalshibh of this date on August 29, 2001, and Bin Laden was given this information on September 6, 2001.

On December 27, 2001, a second bin Laden video was released. In the video, he states, "Terrorism against America deserves to be praised because it was a response to injustice, aimed at forcing America to stop its support for Israel, which kills our people", but he stopped short of admitting responsibility for the attacks.

Shortly before the U.S. presidential election in 2004, in a taped statement, bin Laden publicly acknowledged al-Qaeda's involvement in the attacks on the U.S. and admitted his direct link to the attacks. He said that the attacks were carried out because "we are free...and want to regain freedom for our nation. As you undermine our security we undermine yours." Osama bin Laden says he had personally directed his followers to attack the World Trade Center

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

after his capture in Pakistan]] The journalist Yosri Fouda of the Arabic television channel Al Jazeera reported that in April 2002, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed admitted his involvement, along with Ramzi Binalshibh, in the "Holy Tuesday operation".

Mohamed Atta shared this motivation. Ralph Bodenstein, a former classmate of Atta described him as "most imbued actually about... U.S. protection of these Israeli politics in the region". Abdulaziz al-Omari, a hijacker aboard Flight 11 with Mohamed Atta, said in his video will, "My work is a message those who heard me and to all those who saw me at the same time it is a message to the infidels that you should leave the Arabian peninsula defeated and stop giving a hand of help to the coward Jews in Palestine."

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was also an adviser and financier of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He is also the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, the lead bomber in that attack.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested on March 1, 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan by Pakistani security officials working with the CIA, and is currently being held at Guantanamo Bay. During U.S. hearings in March 2007 Sheikh Mohammed again confessed his responsibility for the attacks, saying "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z." Mohammed made the confession after being subject to waterboarding. In November 2009, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Mohammed and four accused co-conspirators will be transferred from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to stand trial in civilian court near Ground Zero in New York. No trial date was given. Holder expressed confidence that the defendants would get a fair trial that was "open to the public and open to the world".

Other al-Qaeda members

In "Substitution for Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed" from the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, five people are identified as having been completely aware of the operation's details. They are Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, Abu Turab al-Urduni and Mohammed Atef. To date, only peripheral figures have been tried or convicted for the attacks. Bin Laden has not yet been formally indicted for the attacks.

On September 26, 2005, the Spanish high court directed by judge Baltasar Garzón sentenced Abu Dahdah to 27 years of imprisonment for conspiracy on the 9/11 attacks and being a member of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. At the same time, another 17 al-Qaeda members were sentenced to penalties of between six and eleven years. On February 16, 2006, the Spanish Supreme Court reduced the Abu Dahdah penalty to 12 years because it considered that his participation in the conspiracy was not proven.

Motives

The motives for the attacks include the presence of the U.S. in Saudi Arabia, the support of Israel by the U.S., and the sanctions against Iraq. These motives were explicitly stated by Al-Qaeda in proclamations before the attacks, including the fatwā of August 1996, and a shorter fatwā published in February 1998. After the attacks, bin Laden and al-Zawahiri published additional video tapes and audio tapes, some of which repeated those reasons for the attacks. Two particularly important publications were bin Laden's 2002 "Letter to America", and a 2004 video tape by bin Laden. In addition to direct pronouncements by bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, numerous political analysts have postulated motivations for the attacks.

The continued presence of U.S. troops after the Gulf War in Saudi Arabia was one of the stated motivations behind the September 11th terrorist attacks, Bin Laden interpreted the Prophet Muhammad as banning the "permanent presence of infidels in Arabia". In 1996, Bin Laden issued a fatwā, calling for American troops to get out of Saudi Arabia. In the 1998 fatwā, Al-Qaeda wrote " for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples." In the December 1999 interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai, bin Laden said he felt that Americans were "too near to Mecca" and considered this a provocation to the entire Muslim world.

In his November 2002 "Letter to America", Bin Laden described the United States' support of Israel as a motivation: "The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals. And of course there is no need to explain and prove the degree of American support for Israel. The creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased. Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay its price, and pay for it heavily." In 2004 and 2010, Bin Laden again repeated the connection between the September 11 attacks and the support of Israel by the United States. Several analysts, including Mearsheimer and Walt, also claim a motivation for the attacks was the support of Israel by the United States.

In the 1998 fatwā, Al Qaeda identified the Iraq sanctions as a reason to kill Americans: "despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation....On that basis, and in compliance with Allah's order, we issue the following fatwā to all Muslims: The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim..." Another speculated motive was the desire to provoke the U.S. into a broader war against the Islamic world, with the hope of motivating more allies to support Al Qaeda.

Aftermath

George W. Bush is briefed on the World Trade Center attack.]]

Immediate response

The 9/11 attacks had immediate and overwhelming effects upon the American people. Many police officers and rescue workers elsewhere in the country took leaves of absence to travel to New York City to assist in the process of recovering bodies from the twisted remnants of the Twin Towers. Blood donations across the U.S. also saw a surge in the weeks after 9/11.

Over 3000 children were left without one or more parents. Children's reactions both to these actual losses, yet also to feared losses of life and a protective environment in the aftermath of the attacks are well-documented, as were their effects on surviving caregivers.

For the first time in history, SCATANA was invoked forcing all non-emergency civilian aircraft in the United States and several other countries including Canada to be immediately grounded, stranding tens of thousands of passengers across the world. Any international flights were closed to American airspace by the Federal Aviation Administration, causing about five hundred flights to be turned back or redirected to other countries. Canada received 226 of the diverted flights and launched Operation Yellow Ribbon to deal with the large numbers of grounded planes and stranded passengers.

Military operations following the attacks

At 2:40 p.m. in the afternoon of September 11, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was issuing rapid orders to his aides to look for evidence of Iraqi involvement, according to notes taken by senior policy official Stephen Cambone. "Best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H." — meaning Saddam Hussein — "at same time. Not only UBL" (Osama bin Laden), Cambone's notes quoted Rumsfeld as saying. "Need to move swiftly — Near term target needs — go massive — sweep it all up. Things related and not."

The NATO council declared that the attacks on the United States were considered an attack on all NATO nations and, as such, satisfied Article 5 of the NATO charter. Upon returning to Australia having been on an official visit to the U.S. at the time of the attacks, Australian Prime Minister John Howard invoked Article IV of the ANZUS treaty. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the Bush administration announced a war on terror, with the stated goals of bringing Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to justice and preventing the emergence of other terrorist networks. These goals would be accomplished by means including economic and military sanctions against states perceived as harboring terrorists and increasing global surveillance and intelligence sharing.

The second-biggest operation of the U.S. Global War on Terrorism outside of the United States, and the largest directly connected to terrorism, was the overthrow of the Taliban rule of Afghanistan by a U.S.-led coalition. The United States was not the only nation to increase its military readiness, with other notable examples being the Philippines and Indonesia, countries that have their own internal conflicts with Islamic terrorism.

Domestic response

on September 20, 2001]] Following the attacks, President Bush's job approval rating soared to 90%. On September 20, 2001, the U.S. president spoke before the nation and a joint session of the United States Congress, regarding the events of that day, the intervening nine days of rescue and recovery efforts, and his intent in response to those events. In addition, the highly visible role played by New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani won him high praise nationally and in New York.

Many relief funds were immediately set up to assist victims of the attacks, with the task of providing financial assistance to the survivors of the attacks and to the families of victims, such as the Coalition of 9/11 Families. By the deadline for victim's compensation, September 11, 2003, 2,833 applications had been received from the families of those who were killed.

Contingency plans for the continuity of government and the evacuation of leaders were also implemented almost immediately after the attacks.

Within the United States, Congress passed and President Bush signed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, creating the Department of Homeland Security, representing the largest restructuring of the U.S. government in contemporary history. Congress also passed the USA PATRIOT Act, stating that it would help detect and prosecute terrorism and other crimes.

Civil liberties groups have criticized the PATRIOT Act, saying that it allows law enforcement to invade the privacy of citizens and eliminates judicial oversight of law-enforcement and domestic intelligence gathering. The Bush Administration also invoked 9/11 as the reason to initiate a secret National Security Agency operation, "to eavesdrop on telephone and e-mail communications between the United States and people overseas without a warrant".

Hate crimes

Numerous incidents of harassment and hate crimes were reported against Middle Easterners and other "Middle Eastern-looking" people in the days following the 9/11 attacks. Sikhs were also targeted because Sikh males usually wear turbans, which are stereotypically associated with Muslims. There were reports of verbal abuse, attacks on mosques and other religious buildings (including the firebombing of a Hindu temple and assaults on people, including one murder: Balbir Singh Sodhi was fatally shot on September 15, 2001. He, like others, was a Sikh who was mistaken for a Muslim.

A report by South Asian American advocacy group SAALT documented media coverage of 645 bias incidents against Americans of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent between September 11 and September 17, including vandalism, arson, assault, shootings, harassment, and threats.

Muslim American reaction

Top Muslim organizations in the United States were swift to condemn the attacks on 9/11 and called "upon Muslim Americans to come forward with their skills and resources to help alleviate the sufferings of the affected people and their families". Top organizations included the Islamic Society of North America, American Muslim Alliance, American Muslim Council, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Islamic Circle of North America, and the Shari'a Scholars Association of North America. Along with monetary donations, many Islamic organizations launched blood drives and provided medical assistance, food, and shelter for victims.

International response

looks up at the remains of the South Tower.]] The attacks were denounced by mass media and governments worldwide. Across the globe, nations offered pro-American support and solidarity. Leaders in most Middle Eastern countries, and Afghanistan, condemned the attacks. Iraq was a notable exception, with an immediate official statement that "the American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity".

Tens of thousands of people attempted to flee Afghanistan following the attacks, fearing a response by the United States. Pakistan, already home to many Afghan refugees from previous Afghan conflict, closed its border with Afghanistan on September 17. Approximately one month after the attacks, the United States led a broad coalition of international forces in the removal of the Taliban regime for harboring the al-Qaeda organization. Pakistani authorities moved reluctantly to align themselves with the United States in a war against the Taliban. Pakistan provided the United States a number of military airports and bases for its attack on the Taliban regime and arrested over 600 suspected al-Qaeda members, whom it handed over to the United States.

Numerous countries, including Canada, China, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Germany, India and Pakistan introduced anti-terrorism legislation and froze the bank accounts of businesses and individuals they suspected of having al-Qaeda ties. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies in a number of countries, including Italy, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines arrested people they labeled terrorist suspects for the stated purpose of breaking up militant cells around the world.

In the U.S., this aroused some controversy, as critics such as the Bill of Rights Defense Committee argued that traditional restrictions on federal surveillance (e.g. COINTELPRO's monitoring of public meetings) were "dismantled" by the USA PATRIOT Act. Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Liberty argued that certain civil rights protections were also being circumvented.

The United States set up a detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba to hold inmates they defined as "illegal enemy combatants". The legitimacy of these detentions has been questioned by, among others, the European Parliament, the Organization of American States, and Amnesty International.

The international events and reactions immediately after the attacks affected the impact of the World Conference against Racism 2001, which had ended in discord and international recriminations just three days before.

As in the United States, the aftermath of the attacks saw tensions increase in other countries between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theorists question the accepted version of the attacks, the motivations behind them, and the parties involved. Some of the conspiracy theories see the attacks as a casus belli through a false flag to bring about increased militarization and police power.

Some proponents of 9/11 conspiracy theories have speculated that individuals inside the United States possessed detailed information about the attacks and deliberately chose not to prevent them, or that individuals outside of al-Qaeda planned, carried out, or assisted in the attacks. Some conspiracy theorists claim the World Trade Center did not collapse because of the crashing planes but was instead demolished with explosives. This controlled demolition hypothesis is rejected by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, who, after their research, concluded that the impacts of the airliners at high speeds in combination with subsequent fires caused the collapse of both Towers.

Long-term effects

Economic aftermath

The attacks had a significant economic impact on the United States and world markets. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the American Stock Exchange (AMEX), and NASDAQ did not open on September 11 and remained closed until September 17. When the stock markets reopened, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) stock market index fell 684 points, or 7.1%, to 8921, a record-setting one-day point decline.

By the end of the week, the DJIA had fallen 1,369.7 points (14.3%), its then-largest one-week point drop in history, though later surpassed in 2008 during the global financial crisis. U.S. stocks lost $1.4 trillion in value for the week. The city's GDP was estimated to have declined by $27.3 billion for the last three months of 2001 and all of 2002. The Federal government provided $11.2 billion in immediate assistance to the Government of New York City in September 2001, and $10.5 billion in early 2002 for economic development and infrastructure needs.

The 9/11 attacks also hurt small businesses in Lower Manhattan near the World Trade Center, destroying or displacing about 18,000 of them. Assistance was provided by Small Business Administration loans and federal government Community Development Block Grants and Economic Injury Disaster Loans.

Many wondered whether these jobs would return, and the damaged tax base recover. Studies of the economic effects of 9/11 show that the Manhattan office real-estate market and office employment were less affected than initially expected because of the financial services industry's need for face-to-face interaction.

North American air space was closed for several days after the attacks and air travel decreased upon its reopening, leading to nearly a 20% cutback in air travel capacity, and exacerbating financial problems in the struggling U.S. airline industry.

Health effects

The thousands of tons of toxic debris resulting from the collapse of the Twin Towers contained more than 2,500 contaminants, including known carcinogens. This has led to debilitating illnesses among rescue and recovery workers, which many claim to be directly linked to debris exposure. For example, NYPD Officer Frank Macri died of lung cancer that spread throughout his body on September 3, 2007; his family contends the cancer is the result of long hours on the site and they have filed for line-of-duty death benefits, which the city has yet to rule on.

Health effects have also extended to some residents, students, and office workers of Lower Manhattan and nearby Chinatown. Several deaths have been linked to the toxic dust caused by the World Trade Center's collapse and the victims' names will be included in the World Trade Center memorial. There is also scientific speculation that exposure to various toxic products in the air may have negative effects on fetal development. Due to this potential hazard, a notable children's environmental health center is currently analyzing the children whose mothers were pregnant during the WTC collapse, and were living or working near the World Trade Center towers. A study of rescue workers released in April 2010 found that all the workers studied had impaired lung functions, and that 30% to 40% of workers were reporting persistent symptoms that started within the first year of the attack with little or no improvement since.

Legal disputes over the attendant costs of illnesses related to the attacks are still in the court system. On October 17, 2006, federal judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected New York City's refusal to pay for health costs for rescue workers, allowing for the possibility of numerous suits against the city. Government officials have been faulted for urging the public to return to lower Manhattan in the weeks shortly following the attacks. Christine Todd Whitman, administrator of the EPA in the aftermath of the attacks, was heavily criticized for incorrectly saying that the area was environmentally safe. President Bush was criticized for interfering with EPA interpretations and pronouncements regarding air quality in the aftermath of the attacks. In addition, Mayor Giuliani was criticized for urging financial industry personnel to return quickly to the greater Wall Street area.

Some Americans became alarmed at the prospect of using planes for travel, using automobiles instead. This resulted in an estimated 1,595 "excess" highway deaths in the ensuing year.

Investigations

FBI investigation

Immediately after the attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation started PENTTBOM, the largest criminal inquiry in the history of the United States. The FBI told the U.S. Senate that there is "clear and irrefutable" evidence linking Al Qaida and Bin Laden to the attacks.

9/11 Commission

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission), chaired by former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, was formed in late 2002 to prepare a thorough account of the circumstances surrounding the attacks, including preparedness for, and the immediate response to, the attacks. On July 22, 2004, the 9/11 Commission issued the 9/11 Commission Report. The commission and its report have been subject to criticism.

Collapse of the World Trade Center

A federal technical building and fire safety investigation of the collapses of the Twin Towers and 7 WTC has been conducted by the United States Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The goals of this investigation were to determine why the buildings collapsed, the extent of injuries and fatalities, and the procedures involved in designing and managing the World Trade Center. The investigation into the collapse of 1 WTC and 2 WTC was concluded in October 2005, and the investigation into the collapse of 7 WTC concluded in August 2008.

The report concluded that the fireproofing on the Twin Towers' steel infrastructures was blown off by the initial impact of the planes and that, if this had not occurred, the towers would likely have remained standing. A study published by researchers of Purdue University confirmed that, if the thermal insulation on the core columns were scoured off and column temperatures were elevated to approximately , the fire would have been sufficient to initiate collapse.

W. Gene Corley, the director of the original investigation, commented that "the towers really did amazingly well. The terrorist aircraft didn’t bring the buildings down; it was the fire which followed. It was proven that you could take out two thirds of the columns in a tower and the building would still stand." The fires weakened the trusses supporting the floors, making the floors sag. The sagging floors pulled on the exterior steel columns to the point where exterior columns bowed inward. With the damage to the core columns, the buckling exterior columns could no longer support the buildings, causing them to collapse. In addition, the report asserts that the towers' stairwells were not adequately reinforced to provide emergency escape for people above the impact zones. NIST concluded that uncontrolled fires in 7 WTC caused floor beams and girders to heat and subsequently "caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down".

In May 2007, senators from both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party drafted legislation that would openly present an internal CIA investigative report. One of the backers, Senator Ron Wyden stated "The American people have a right to know what the Central Intelligence Agency was doing in those critical months before 9/11.... I am going to bulldog this until the public gets it." The report investigates the responsibilities of individual CIA personnel before and after the 9/11 attacks. The report was completed in 2005, but its details have never been released to the public.

Rebuilding

On the day of the attacks, New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani proclaimed, "We will rebuild. We're going to come out of this stronger than before, politically stronger, economically stronger. The skyline will be made whole again." The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, tasked with coordinating rebuilding efforts at the World Trade Center site, was criticized for doing little with the enormous funding directed to the rebuilding efforts.

Aside from construction of 7 World Trade Center, adjacent to the main site and completed in 2006, and the PATH station, which opened in late 2003, work on rebuilding on the main World Trade Center site was delayed until late 2006 when leaseholder Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey came to an agreement on financing of the new buildings. The 1 World Trade Center is currently under construction at the site and at 1,776 ft (541 m) upon completion in 2011, will become one of the tallest buildings in North America, behind only the CN Tower in Toronto.

Three more towers were expected to be built between 2007 and 2012 on the site, and will be located one block east of where the original towers stood. After the late-2000s recession, the site's owners said that construction of new towers could be delayed until 2036. The damaged section of the Pentagon was rebuilt and occupied within a year of the attacks.

Memorials

In the days immediately following the attacks, many memorials and vigils were held around the world. In addition, people posted photographs of the dead and missing all around Ground Zero. A witness described being unable to "get away from faces of innocent victims who were killed. Their pictures are everywhere, on phone booths, street lights, walls of subway stations. Everything reminded me of a huge funeral, people quiet and sad, but also very nice. Before, New York gave me a cold feeling; now people were reaching out to help each other.”

viewed from Jersey City on the anniversary of the attacks in 2004]] One of the first memorials was the Tribute in Light, an installation of 88 searchlights at the footprints of the World Trade Center towers which projected two vertical columns of light into the sky. In New York, the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition was held to design an appropriate memorial on the site. The winning design, Reflecting Absence, was selected in August 2006, and consists of a pair of reflecting pools in the footprints of the towers, surrounded by a list of the victims' names in an underground memorial space. Plans for a museum on the site have been put on hold, following the abandonment of the International Freedom Center in reaction to complaints from the families of many victims.

The Pentagon Memorial was completed and opened to the public on the seventh anniversary of the attacks, September 11, 2008. It consists of a landscaped park with 184 benches facing the Pentagon. When the Pentagon was repaired in 2001–2002, a private chapel and indoor memorial were included, located at the spot where Flight 77 crashed into the building.

At Shanksville, a permanent Flight 93 National Memorial is planned to include a sculpted grove of trees forming a circle around the crash site, bisected by the plane's path, while wind chimes will bear the names of the victims. A temporary memorial is located from the crash site. New York City firefighters donated a memorial to the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department. It is a cross made of steel from the World Trade Center and mounted on top of a platform shaped like the Pentagon. It was installed outside the firehouse on August 25, 2008.

Many other permanent memorials are being constructed elsewhere, and scholarships and charities have been established by the victims' families, along with many other organizations and private figures.

On every anniversary, in New York City, the names of the victims who died at that location are read out against a background of somber music. The President of the United States also attends a memorial service at the Pentagon. Smaller services are held in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, which are usually attended by the President's spouse.

Final resting place for WTC victims

Following the attacks, the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island was temporarily reopened to receive and process much of the debris from the destruction of the World Trade Center. The debris contained the remains of many of the victims; much of it in the form of dust and small fragments. In August 2005, 17 plaintiffs, claiming to have support from 1,000 other relatives, filed a case in court to have the City of New York move nearly one million tons of material from the Fresh Kills landfill to another location where it would be sifted and placed in a cemetery. Norman Siegel, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, stated "It comes down to this: Are we prepared to leave hundreds of body parts and human remains on top of a garbage dump?" James E. Tyrrell, a lawyer representing the city, argued "You have to be able to particularize and say it's your body part. All that's left here is a bunch of undifferentiated dust."

On March 26, 2010, families of 9/11 victims received notice that the city will conduct a sifting operation for World Trade Center remains at the Fresh Kills landfill. The operation is scheduled to take three months at an estimated cost of $1.4 million. Anthropologists and other trained professionals will carefully evaluate and search the material, and potential remains will be sent for further testing to the laboratories of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

On October 4, 2010, the Supreme Court of the United States rejected an appeal by some families of 9/11 victims to require a more thorough examination of material from the WTC site to check for human remains before disposal. They claimed that some of the material (223,000 tons out of approximately 1.65 million) had either not been screened or not screened adequately, and that a landfill was not a proper resting place for material that may still contain remains of victims. (According to court records, the remains of approximately 1,100 of the 2,752 people killed at the site were never recovered or identified.) City officials said that they spent 10 months carefully examining the material for human remains before sending it to the landfill. Lower federal courts had already rejected the lawsuit by the families against the City of New York.

See also

Families of September 11

Flight 93 (TV film)

Legal issues related to the September 11 attacks

List of terrorist incidents, 2001

Survivor registry

United 93 (film)

References

External links

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States official commission website

September 11, 2001, Documentary Project from the U.S. Library of Congress, Memory.loc.gov

September 11, 2001, Web Archive from the U.S. Library of Congress, Minerva

September 11 Digital Archive: Saving the Histories of September 11, 2001 from the Center for History and New Media and the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning

, From WikiSource

Sept. 11 Co-Conspirators from the U.S. Defense Department on Military Commissions including case documents on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed et al.

Statistics from September 11 Numbers of victims, deaths, other information

CNN September 11 Memorial – List of victims, and photos.

Multimedia

CNN.com – Video archive, including the first and second planes.

Inside 9/11 – National Geographic Society

Time.com – 'Shattered: a remarkable collection of photographs', James Nachtwey

September 11, 2001 Screenshot Archive – Database of 230 screenshots from news sites around the world.

Wikileaks">9/11 tragedy pager intercepts. from Wikileaks

Aerial photos of 9/11 released photo gallery on MyNorthwest.com

Category:Airliner hijackings Category:September 11 attacks Category:Terrorist incidents in New York Category:Terrorist incidents in the United States Category:Terrorist incidents in the United States in 2001

Category:2001 murders in the United States Category:Airliner hijackings resulting in crashes

Name	Jesse Ventura
Order	38th
Office	Governor of Minnesota
Term start	January 8, 1999
Term end	January 6, 2003
Lieutenant	Mae Schunk
Predecessor	Arne Carlson
Successor	Tim Pawlenty
Office2	Mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota
Term start2	1991
Term end2	1995
Birthname	James George Janos
Birth date	July 15, 1951
Birth place	Minneapolis, Minnesota
Spouse	Terry Ventura
Children	Tyrel VenturaJade Ventura
Profession	US Navy UDTProfessional WrestlerColor commentatorActorTalk Show hostPoliticianAuthor
Party	Reform Party (1999–2000)Independence Party of Minnesota (2000–present)
Branch	United States Navy
Serviceyears	1969–1975
Rank	Petty Officer
Unit	Underwater Demolition Team 12United States Navy
Awards	National Defense Service MedalVietnam Service Medal

James George Janos (born July 15, 1951), better known as Jesse Ventura, is an American politician, the 38th Governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003, Navy UDT veteran, actor, and former radio and television talk show host. As a professional wrestler, he is best known for his nickname, Jesse "The Body" Ventura, and tenure in the World Wrestling Federation as a combatant and color commentator. In 2004, he was inducted into the company's Hall of Fame. Ventura has described himself as Slovak. Ventura (then still using his legal name of Janos) attended the now-closed Cooper Elementary School and graduated from Minneapolis' Roosevelt High School in 1969.

Navy career

From September 11, 1969, to September 10, 1975, during the Vietnam War era, Ventura served in the United States Navy. While on active duty, Ventura was part of Underwater Demolition Team 12 (UDT). The UDTs were merged with the US Navy SEALs in 1983, 8 years after Ventura had left the Navy.

Bill Salisbury, an attorney in San Diego and a former Navy SEAL officer, accused Ventura of "pretending" to be a SEAL and wrote that Ventura would be blurring an important distinction by claiming to be a SEAL when he was actually a frogman with the UDT. Compared to SEAL teams, UDTs saw less combat and took fewer casualties. Following that, Governor Ventura's office confirmed that Ventura was never a member of the SEALs. His spokesman stated that Ventura has never tried to convince people otherwise. He was criticized by hunters and conservationists for stating in an interview with the Minneapolis StarTribune in April 2001, "Until you have hunted men, you haven't hunted yet."

In January 2002, Ventura, who had never specifically claimed to have fought in Vietnam, disclosed for the first time that he did not see combat. He did not receive the Combat Action Ribbon, which was awarded to those involved in a firefight or who went on clandestine or special operations where the risk of enemy fire was great or expected.

In the fall of 1974, Ventura left the bike club to return to Minnesota. Shortly after leaving, the Mongols entered into open warfare with their rivals the Hells Angels.

Professional wrestling career

Name	Jesse Ventura
Names	Jesse "The Body" Ventura Years later, as a broadcaster, Ventura made a running joke out of claiming that Graham stole all of his ring attire ideas from him.
Show name	Jesse Ventura's America
Caption	Ventura on his MSNBC talk show Jesse Ventura's America
Starring	Jesse Ventura
Location	Saint Paul, Minnesota,
Network	MSNBC
First aired	October 4, 2003
Last aired	December 26, 2003
Italic title	no

Ventura was succeeded in his office by Republican Tim Pawlenty. He began a cable television show in October 2003, on MSNBC called Jesse Ventura's America. The show was broadcast once a week, on Saturdays, unlike many MSNBC shows which are on five nights a week (this show was originally planned for five nights a week as well, but MSNBC executives changed their minds). At the time of its airing, Jesse Ventura's America was the only national television show filmed in Minnesota. Among his guests were Charles Barkley, Gray Davis, Arianna Huffington, Rob Kampia, and Kathy McKee.

In 2004, fellow Navy veteran and Harvard graduate student Christopher Mora promoted the idea that the academic establishment had failed to reach out to citizens experienced in public service, but who did not fit the traditional idea of a politician. He successfully lobbied for the selection of Ventura, who started teaching a study group at Harvard University for the Spring 2004 semester as a visiting fellow at the Kennedy School of Government's Institute of Politics (IOP). His 90-minute study group focused on third party politics, campaign finance, the war on drugs, and other relevant political issues. Ventura scheduled multiple famous friends to appear for his seminars including Dean Barkley and Richard Marcinko.

On October 22, 2004, with Ventura by his side, former Maine Governor Angus King endorsed John Kerry for President at the Minnesota state capitol building. Ventura did not speak at the press conference. When prodded for a statement, Governor King responded, "He plans to vote for John Kerry, but he doesn't want to make a statement and subject himself to the tender mercies of the Minnesota press".

In November 2004, an advertisement began airing in California featuring Ventura. In it, Ventura voices his opposition to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's policies regarding Native American casinos. Like Hogan, Schwarzenegger at one point was also a close friend of Ventura as well, but since Schwarzenegger's victory in California, Ventura has not reportedly given him any praise; Schwarzenegger didn't even mention Ventura's name in an interview with Fox News in 2005, where reporter Chris Wallace asked him if he was "the next Jesse Ventura". Ventura is serving as an advisory board member for a new group called Operation Truth, a non-profit organization set up "to give voice to troops who served in Iraq." “The current use of the National Guard is wrong....These are men who did not sign up to go occupy foreign nations”.

In August 2005, Ventura became the spokesperson for BetUS, an online Sportsbook. In 2005, Ventura repeatedly discussed leaving the United States. In September 2005, Ventura announced on The Mike Malloy Show that he was leaving the U.S. and planned to "have an adventure". In late October 2005, he went on The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch and reiterated that he was leaving the U.S. due to, among other things, censorship. He has since moved to Baja California, Mexico.

In September 2006, Ventura endorsed and campaigned with independent Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman, and Independence Party of Minnesota's gubernatorial candidate Peter Hutchinson and Team Minnesota. He revealed he now spends much of his time surfing near his home in Mexico.

In April 2008, a book authored by Ventura, titled Don't Start the Revolution Without Me, was released. In it, Ventura describes a hypothetical campaign in which he is a candidate for President of the United States in 2008, running as an independent. In an interview with the Associated Press at the time of the book's release, however, Ventura denied any plans for a presidential bid, stating that the scenario is only imaginary and not indicative of a "secret plan to run". On MinnPost.com, Ventura's agent, Steve Schwartz, describes the book thus: "[Ventura is revealing] why he left politics and discussing the disastrous war in Iraq, why he sees our two-party system as corrupt, and what Fidel Castro told him about who was really behind the assassination of President Kennedy."

However, in an interview on CNN's The Situation Room on April 7, Ventura hinted that he was considering entering the race for the United States Senate seat then held by Norm Coleman, his Republican opponent in the 1998 Gubernatorial race. A poll commissioned by Twin Cities station Fox 9 put him at 24 percent, behind Al Franken at 32 percent and Norm Coleman at 39 percent in a hypothetical three-way race. However, Ventura announced on Larry King Live on July 14, 2008 that he would not run.

He spoke at former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's "Rally for the Republic", organized by the Campaign for Liberty, on September 2, 2008. At the event, Ventura implied a possible future run at the U.S. Presidency. Ventura stated before a live audience that "If America proves itself worthy, in 2012 we'll give them a race they'll never forget!"

TV Week is reporting that Ventura is in negotiations with 20th Television to host a half-hour court show that would debut in the fall of 2009.

Bush/Cheney administration and torture

In a May 11, 2009 interview with Larry King, Ventura twice stated that George W. Bush was the worst president of his lifetime, adding "President Obama inherited something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that's borderline depression." On the issue of waterboarding, Ventura added:

I'll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders. ... If it's done wrong, you certainly could drown. You could swallow your tongue. [It] could do a whole bunch of stuff to you. If it's done wrong orit's torture, Larry. It's torture. Ventura also expressed interest in being appointed ambassador to Cuba should U.S. relations with Cuba continue to improve. On a May 18, 2009 appearance on The View, Ventura asked Elisabeth Hasselbeck if waterboarding is acceptable, why were not Oklahoma City bombers, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols waterboarded. "We only seem to waterboard Muslims." Comparing the waterboarding of detainees to the North Vietnamese torture of American P.O.W.s, Ventura asserted, "We created our own Hanoi Hilton in Guantánamo. That's our Hanoi Hilton."

Questions regarding 9/11

In April and May 2008, Jesse Ventura, in several radio interviews for his new book, Don't Start the Revolution Without Me, expressed concerns about what he described as some of the unanswered questions of the September 11 attacks. His remarks about the possibility that the World Trade Center was demolished with explosives were also repeated in newspaper and television stories following some of the interviews.

Ventura was interviewed on the Alex Jones radio show on April 2, 2008 where he said that he felt that many unanswered questions remain, and he believes that World Trade Center Building 7, which was not struck by a plane, collapsed on the afternoon of 9/11 in a manner which resembled a controlled demolition Ventura stated:

}}

He also states the Twin Towers appeared to be pulverized to dust, that they fell at virtually free-fall speed, and that no other massive steel-framed buildings had ever collapsed in this manner due to fire before.

Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura

In August 2009, it was announced that Ventura would host TruTV's new show Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. "Ventura will hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces," truTV said in a statement. On the program, which debuted on December 2, 2009, Ventura travels the country, investigating cases and getting input from believers and skeptics before passing judgment on a theory's validity. According to TruTV, the first episode drew 1.6 million viewers, a record for a new series on the network.

American Conspiracies

American Conspiracies is a book Ventura wrote with Dick Russell, published by Skyhorse Publishing in 2010 which discusses conspiracy theories related to several notable events in United States history.

Personal life

In 1975, Ventura married his wife Terry. The couple have two grown children: a son, Tyrel (b. 1980), who is a movie and television director and producer, and a daughter, Jade (b. 1983).

During his wrestling days, Ventura used anabolic steroids. He admitted this after retiring from competition, and went on to make public service announcements and appear in printed ads and on posters warning young people about the potential dangers and potential health risks of abusing steroids.

In 2002, Ventura was hospitalized for a severe blood clot in his lungs, the same kind of injury that ended his wrestling career.

Currently, Ventura and his wife live in Mexico, "There are no newspapers down where I live. Where I live, I'm an hour from pavement and an hour from electricity..I'm completely off the grid."

Religion

In a Playboy interview, he said, "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business." In his 1999 best-selling memoir I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura responded to the controversy sparked by these remarks by elaborating on his views concerning religion: "I’d like to clarify [my comments published in Playboy] about religious people being weak-minded. I didn’t mean all religious people. I don’t have any problem with the vast majority of religious folks. I count myself among them, more or less. But I believe because it makes sense to me, not because I think it can be proven. There are lots of people out there who think they know the truth about God and religion, but does anybody really know for sure? That’s why the founding fathers built freedom of religious belief into the structure of this nation, so that everybody could make up their minds for themselves. But I do have a problem with the people who think they have some right to try to impose their beliefs on others. I hate what the fundamentalist fanatics are doing to our country. It seems as though, if everybody doesn’t accept their version of reality, that somehow invalidates it for them. Everybody must believe the same things they do. That’s what I find weak and destructive."

Ventura endorsed equal rights for religious minorities, as well as people who don't believe in God, by declaring July 4, 2002, "Indivisible Day". Ventura proclaimed October 13–19, 2002 as "Christian Heritage Week" in Minnesota.

In 2010, regarding the Ground Zero Mosque controversy, Ventura argued, "Excuse me, the Constitution says they can do it, it ends there! You cannot subject the Constitution to a popularity poll," in reference to the opposition of the mosque. In a separate interview on CNN, when told that the victims' families needed to be respected, Ventura replied, "But what's the problem? I mean, Timothy McVeigh, I assume, was a Christian and he did an act of terrorism. Would they then remove all Christian churches from around Oklahoma City, because it happened to have been a Christian that did it? You know, it's ridiculous."

Electoral history

1998 election for Governor

*Jesse Ventura (Ref.), 37%

*Norm Coleman (R), 34%

*Hubert H. Humphrey III (DFL), 28%

Books

I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom Up ISBN 978-0-451-20086-0

Do I Stand Alone?: Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals ISBN 978-0-7434-0587-4

Jesse Ventura Tells It Like It Is: America's Most Outspoken Governor Speaks Out About Government (co-authored with Heron Marquez) ISBN 978-0-8225-0385-9

Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (co-authored with Dick Russell) ISBN 978-1-60239-273-1

American Conspiracies (March 2010, co-authored with Dick Russell) ISBN 978-1602398023

Notes

References

deFiebre, Conrad. "Record-high job approval for Ventura; Many Minnesotans like his style, don't mind moonlighting." Star Tribune 22 July 1999: 1A+.

deFiebre, Conrad. "Using body language, Ventura backs Kerry." Star Tribune 23 October 2004: 1A+.

Kahn, Joseph P. "The Body Politic." The Boston Globe 25 February 2004. Accessed April 28, 2004.

Olson, Rochelle and Bob von Sternberg. "GOP demands equal time; Wellstone aide apologizes; Ventura upset." Minneapolis Star-Tribune 31 October 2002: 1A+.

External links

WWE Hall of Fame Profile

Ventura "on the issues"

Analysis of Jesse Ventura's Playboy interview by Aubrey Immelman

Jesse Ventura – Media Man Australia profile

Election Of Bonapartist Figure Ventura In Minnesota Is Danger To Working People – article in The Militant 1998.

Radiotapes.com Recordings of Jesse Ventura for Governor commercials from 1998 (scroll down to Misc Recordings).

Larry King Live: Jesse Ventura CNN April 1, 2008

"Jesse's back! New Ventura book 'Revolution' will cover political waterfront" from Minnpost.com

The Jesse Ventura Forums

Jesse Ventura on Wrestling-Radio.com

Jesse Ventura interview, Diaday.com

Jesse Ventura on The Young Turks Show.

Category:Actors from Minnesota Category:American actor-politicians Category:American athlete-politicians Category:American film actors Category:American memoirists Category:American military personnel of the Vietnam War Category:American professional wrestlers Category:American talk radio hosts Category:American television sports announcers Category:American actors of German descent Category:American sportspeople of German descent Category:Governors of Minnesota Category:Mayors of places in Minnesota Category:Mongols (motorcycle club) Category:Radio personalities from Minneapolis, Minnesota Category:Professional wrestling announcers Category:Reform Party of the United States of America politicians Category:Minnesota Vikings broadcasters Category:Tampa Bay Buccaneers broadcasters Category:United States Navy sailors Category:WWE Hall of Fame Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:Independence Party of Minnesota politicians Category:American sportspeople of Slovak descent Category:American politicians of Slovak descent Category:American actors of Slovak descent