The First Time the World Trade Center Was Attacked

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History tells us — correctly — that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed in a terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001.

But that was not the first time terrorists targeted the iconic towers.

Terrorists tried to blow up the World Trade Center 25 years ago today with a car bomb in the basement of the North Tower (which would be the first of the towers to be struck by a hijacked airplane in 2001). The plan was for the North Tower to collapse into the South Tower, killing tens of thousands of people in the process.

That plan did not succeed. It caused some damage, killed half a dozen people and injured hundreds more (most of the injuries occurred during the process of evacuating the tower), but the Twin Towers remained standing for more than eight years.

Outraged initially, Americans became distracted by other things, and they went on with their lives. The terrorists learned from the experience and returned with a far deadlier plan in 2001.

The names of the conspirators on that first occasion — Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ahmed Ajaj and the financier Khaled Sheikh Mohammed — became infamous in American history. Most were convicted in U.S. courts.

Osama bin Laden, who was behind the Sept. 11 attacks, was not found to have any connection to the 1993 bombing.

The body count 25 years ago today was significantly lower than the one on Sept. 11, of course, and that seems to make forgetting about what happened in 1993 justifiable — but it is instructive in evaluating the mentality of the terrorists.

The 1993 attack didn't produce as many casualties and the damage wasn't as extensive, but these people weren't like jilted boyfriends who impulsively acted on urges to get even with their exes. The terrorists were — and, presumably, still are — very patient and willing to devote as much time as necessary to learn from their mistakes. They waited more than eight years before trying again, but their attack in 2001 was far more productive from their point of view.

That will be worth remembering if the terrorists attempt something else in the future. If they fail, don't think that it is over. They will almost certainly be back.

When Clinton Hit Back

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"What we're doing is sending a message against the people who were responsible for planning this operation. ... [If] anybody asks the same people to do it again, they will remember this message."

Secretary of Defense Les Aspin
Washington Post
June 1993

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Believe it or not, there was a time — not so long ago — when American presidents wouldn't hesitate to act if a single American was threatened, much less actually injured or killed.

Such a case occurred 20 years ago today.

To put it in context: A couple of months earlier, former President George H.W. Bush — the man Bill Clinton had beaten in the previous year's presidential election — was in Kuwait to commemorate the conclusion of the Persian Gulf War. Seventeen people were arrested and charged with conspiring to kill Bush with explosives that were hidden in a vehicle.

No explosions occurred. No one was hurt. But Clinton was convinced, largely because of information gathered and analyzed by American foreign and domestic intelligence operatives, that the plot originated in Iraq — and 20 years ago today, he used American military might for the first time, ordering nearly two dozen cruise missile strikes on Iraqi intelligence facilities.

The strikes were meant both as retaliation for the plot and warning not to attempt anything like it again. But Clinton didn't shoot first and ask questions afterward. He explored numerous options, even those he felt did not go far enough. Eventually he selected one on the recommendation of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"I felt we would have been justified in hitting Iraq harder," Clinton wrote in his presidential memoirs, "but [Colin] Powell made a persuasive case that the attack would deter further Iraqi terrorism and that dropping bombs on more targets, including presidential palaces, would have been unlikely to kill Saddam Hussein and almost certain to kill more innocent people."

Most of the missiles hit their intended targets, but a few overshot, and eight civilians were killed.

"It was a stark reminder," Clinton wrote, "that no matter how careful the planning and how accurate the weapons, when that kind of firepower is unleashed, there are usually unintended consequences."

The occasion of this anniversary has led me to think about two recent events that tell me much of what I need to know about U.S. policy in the 21st century.

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First, the evasive stance taken by Barack Obama and the members of his administration after the deadly attacks on the embassy in Benghazi last year tells me the executive branch is not willing to stand up for Americans abroad, be they dead or alive — unless there are clear benefits in doing so.

Second, Obama's recent argument in a speech at the National Defense University that the war on terror must end as all wars do shows a staggering naivete. Rhetorically, it sounds good, but the problem is that the war on terror is not a conventional war with armies and generals. It cannot be resolved in conventional ways — if, in fact, it can be resolved at all.

When you are dealing with terrorists, you are not dealing with anything as organized or concentrated as a single army or nation. Your enemies could be from anywhere on the globe — including your own back yard — and as long as even one is on the loose, so is the danger.

Sympathizers with the opposition have always been around — there were Nazi and Japanese sympathizers in America during World War II — but they weren't generally viewed as combatants unless they took some kind of aggressive action.

By the very nature of their activities, terrorists must be regarded — automatically — as combatants.

The idea that America can arbitrarily declare the war on terror over is as imperialistic as any I have heard, and it tells terrorists around the world, OK, we're going back to sleep now. It harkens back to a time when the prevailing attitude was that we were always in the right; therefore, we were entitled to impose our will on others. We — and only we — could decide when a war began and when it ended.

It was the same attitude — the concept of manifest destiny — that directed the westward expansion in the 19th century. America is entitled to seize what it wants.

American imperialism — as well as hubris — is what the terrorists really would like to see destroyed.

The Ashes of Waco

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It was 20 years ago today that the Branch Davidians' compound in Waco, Texas, burned to the ground when federal agents stormed the compound after a seven–week standoff.

In the aftermath of the bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon this week, it was natural for people to wonder if there was some connection between the two. When one considers the events of the last few hours, though, it is natural to wonder if there is a connection.

The focus of the investigation and manhunt was two brothers reported to be from Chechnya, but they are now said to have left Chechnya while children. At this writing, their allegiances/motivations are uncertain. About all that is certain is that one of the brothers is dead and the other is on the loose.

I suppose such questions will be answered at some point and in one way or another.

If the perpetrator(s) turns out to be domestic, there may be a pretty good chance that the explosions were planned to coincide (almost) with the anniversary of Waco. It was, after all, the inspiration for the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City two years later.

I remember exactly where I was on this day in 1993. I was in Columbia, Mo., with a group of my journalism students from the University of Oklahoma. We were attending a weekend seminar on the University of Missouri campus.

April 19, 1993 was a Monday, the last day of the conference. When things wrapped up around midday, we were planning to hit the road for Norman. I remember waking up in my motel room that morning and switching on the TV. As I got dressed for the day, I kept track of the start of the fatal siege.

It began early that day when the feds tried to use armored vehicles to puncture the walls of the compound — through which, the plan went, tear gas would be tossed in an attempt to flush the occupants out.

But somehow the compound went up in flames instead — some say the Davidians set the fire(s) themselves — and, when it was all said and done, more than 70 people, including their leader, the charismatic David Koresh (born Vernon Howell), were dead.

I've never been sure of the sequence of events. The students and I were busy until around 12:30 or so, but we learned, just before the seminar adjourned, that a fire — well, several fires — broke out shortly after noon. As the host of the seminar concluded the activities, he advised that "all hell has broken loose in Waco."

(I'm not alone in that uncertainty about the event sequence, by the way. Even among those who were at the scene and participated in the siege, there has been and continues to be disagreement about what happened when and who was responsible.)

The students and I didn't see footage of the burning compound until we got back to Norman, but we heard reports on the radio all the way.

That night, when I was back in my apartment, I stayed up late watching news accounts, marveling at what we had missed and at the irony that a bunch of journalism students and professors had missed what was probably the greatest news story of the year because they were attending a seminar about how to present the news more effectively.

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I had no idea that, two years later to the day, a bomb would go off in Oklahoma City, less than 30 miles from where I lived, and the timing would be connected to the anniversary of the assault on the Branch Davidians' compound in Texas.

(That was an even bigger news story, one in which I would find myself involved indirectly — as teacher and unofficial adviser to the students who staffed the OU campus newspaper, who produced all their own copy and photos and graphics, unlike nearly all newspapers, professional and collegiate, who depended upon the Associated Press.

(Frankly, I will never be able to say adequately — or often enough — how proud I was and am of the work those young people did on a story that undoubtedly was intensely personal for them. Many had grown up in Oklahoma City or nearby communities; one student even lost her father.)

But no one knew there was a link until later.

Somehow, that seems appropriate. Like other charismatic figures who led their followers to their destruction, Koresh was a mysterious individual. Judging from what I have read of Koresh — and the video clips I have seen of him preaching to his followers — virtually no one (perhaps not even Koresh himself) could have foreseen the fiery end of the Waco compound.

In many ways, Koresh and the Davidians remain shrouded in mystery.

Two decades later, Koresh still casts a mystifying spell.

"His legacy," writes Allan Turner in the Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise, "is one of righteousness, duplicity and showmanship."

A survivor of the inferno told Tim Madigan of the Fort Worth Star–Telegram that he still believes Koresh was who he claimed to be — in spite of the many questions that swirled around the standoff and final siege at the time.

There are many questions about those events that remain unanswered.

The First Attack on the Twin Towers ...

Do you remember where you were 20 years ago today?

I had just started my second semester of teaching at the University of Oklahoma. A little more than two years later, we would all be absorbed by the bombing of the federal building in nearby Oklahoma City, but, on this day in 1993, our attention was on the World Trade Center in New York where someone had set off a bomb in the underground parking area of the North Tower.

I remember lingering in the campus newsroom, watching TV reports and trying to figure out what it all meant. On our TV screen, we saw a lot of smoke and a lot of soot–stained faces on people who were being brought out of the building. Six people were killed that day (seven if you count the unborn child one of the victims was carrying); more than 1,000 were injured.

But as far as we (and, no doubt, most Americans) were concerned, the reason for the bombing was incomprehensible.

As spectacular as those numbers appeared at the time, the bombing did not go off as intended. The plan was for the bomb to knock the North Tower into the South Tower and bring both down, killing thousands in the process. Neither tower fell that day. That would have to wait about 8½ years.

Ramzi Yousef was the mastermind behind the plan. Although it failed to accomplish the objective, it was revised and became the 9–11 plan, which did bring both towers down and did result in the deaths of thousands.

I guess that was the first salvo in the War on Terrorism, although few, if any, realized it that day. Initial (and erroneous) news reports focused on the likelihood that a main transformer may have blown.

My recollection is that neither I nor anyone around me (the other professors, the students, etc.) understood what had happened that day.

Of course, none of us had any idea what would happen in 2001, when the terrorists returned with a vengeance. We were blissfully ignorant at that time.

That would change.