United States of America

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The War on Terrorism

On September 11, 2001, four US passenger airliners were hijacked from Boston, Newark, and Washington airports by suicide terrorists. Two of the aeroplanes were deliberately flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, causing them to collapse and burying over 3,000 victims, including emergency service personnel who had attended the scene of the disaster. A further aeroplane crashed into the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., killing nearly 200 more and the fourth aeroplane crashed near Pittsburgh; the terrorists on board were thought to have been overpowered by passengers. World opinion was almost unanimous in condemning the atrocities and President Bush sought wide support for what he declared to be a war against terrorism. The chief suspect behind the attacks was Osama bin Laden (see above), who was in hiding in Afghanistan. As the US prepared for military action against Afghanistan, securing the support of neighbouring Pakistan, the Taliban regime showed reluctance in compelling Bin Laden to leave. While support for military retaliation remained strong at home, and among US allies, there were also calls for restraint, as concerns arose regarding the risks of a campaign in Afghanistan, a notoriously difficult battleground.

Military action against Afghanistan was launched on the evening of October 7-8, 2001 with air and missile strikes on the major Afghan cities of Kabul, Kandahār, Mazār-e Sharīf, and Jalālābād. Later, ground troops joined the action and in partnership with the Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan took the cities of Qondūz and Kabul as the Taliban collapsed and fell back to its strongholds. However, the fighting continued for many months in the ongoing hunt for Bin Laden and to secure the entire country. Peacekeepers also patrolled the country, especially Kabul, as the new government attempted to establish itself in Afghanistan. Captured prisoners from the fighting were taken to a US naval base—dubbed Camp X-Ray—at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The US received widespread international criticism after pictures were released showing prisoners being held blindfolded and shackled.

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Domestic Issues

In the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington there were numerous cases of anthrax spores being sent via the postal system to government buildings, including the Capitol building, and news agencies. Five people at various sites from Connecticut to Florida died from inhalation anthrax, with more than 50 more being exposed to either skin anthrax or inhalation anthrax. No individual or organization claimed responsibility for the incidents, but the suggestion that the attacks were orchestrated by Osama bin Laden was dismissed.

On November 12, 2001, in New York an American Airlines flight on route to the Dominican Republic crashed on the residential district of Queens. Coming so soon after the attacks on the city, many feared a repetition of the terrorist violence. However, the authorities quickly refuted any suggestion other than that the crash was an accident. Over 260 passengers and people on the ground were killed in the incident.

The major energy company Enron filed for bankruptcy in December after collapsing with substantial debts. The corporate failure led to a criminal investigation into the business practices at Enron. Auditors Arthur Andersen were implicated in the irregularities once it was established that the company had been shredding documents. On January 23, the chairman and chief executive of Enron, Kenneth Lay, resigned; two days later a former vice-chairman of the company was found dead, apparently having committed suicide. The Enron affair was quickly followed by the collapse of telecommunications giant WorldCom, which also faced bankruptcy after an accounting scandal led to a distortion in the reporting of its accounts by US$9 billion. WorldCom’s bankruptcy eclipsed that of Enron as the country’s biggest; its chief executive Bernie Ebbers was found guilty of conspiracy and fraud and was given a 25-year prison sentence.

On February 1, 2003, the US space shuttle Columbia, with seven crew members onboard, broke up upon entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Debris from the accident was scattered across Texas. Investigators could find no immediate cause for the disaster but focused their attention on damage to the craft’s wing and heat-resistant tile structure.

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Protecting the Nation

Galvanized by the attacks on New York and Washington, in November 2002 President Bush appointed former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge to a new Cabinet-level Office of Homeland Security (DHS), with the responsibility of protecting the US against acts of terrorism. The DHS combined dozens of federal agencies into one department, constituting the largest reorganization in the federal government since the Department of Defense was created in 1947.

The following month Bush gave the go-ahead to the new and controversial National Missile Defence (NMD) programme. In the previous June, Bush had abandoned the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, arguing that the new defence programme was needed to counter the nuclear threat from the so-called rogue states such as North Korea and Iraq. An interim missile defence capability of ten interceptors was planned to be in place by 2004, with a further ten missiles by 2005.

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War on Iraq

In President Bush’s first State of the Union address in January 2002 he controversially advocated taking action against “an axis of evil”, three nations—Iran, Iraq, and North Korea—accused of developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Bush identified Iraq as a threat to global security and sought proof that the regime of Saddam Hussein had destroyed weapons banned as after its defeat in the Gulf War of 1991. The administration feared that these weapons could land in the hands of terrorist groups. In October Congress passed a resolution authorizing Bush to use force to enforce all relevant UN resolutions regarding Iraq. The following month the UN Security Council passed a resolution ordering weapons inspectors to return to Iraq, from where they had been expelled in 1998, and threatening “serious consequences” if Iraq did not disarm. Iraq agreed to comply with the resolution, and weapons inspections started that same month.

However, the pace of progress was considered too slow and the Bush administration argued that Iraq was not fully cooperating with inspectors and was continuing to hide banned weapons. Bush, with the support of Britain and several other countries, sought UN authorization of force against Iraq. However, some countries, such as France, Germany, Russia, and China, wanted to give the weapons inspections more time to proceed and opposed military action. Hans Blix, chief weapons inspector, requested more time to complete the inspections work. After the UN Security Council was unable to reach agreement about whether to authorize force against Iraq, Bush decided to forego UN approval and pursue military action in a coalition with other willing countries. In March 2003 US-led forces invaded Iraq from the south of the country and coalition air strikes targeted key sites in the country, most visibly Baghdad, at the start of the War on Iraq.

The war lasted just over a month before Baghdad was taken, and on May 1 Bush declared the war over. However, coalition troops continued to find their peacekeeping and reconstruction roles far more arduous, as for the rest of the year they attempted to re-establish order in the country. Baghdad, the capital, and the US forces in particular were subject to repeated attacks and bombings from rebel fighters as the problems of creating a new government and repairing the infrastructure were tackled. By April 2004 more than 700 members of the US military had died during the war and reconstruction period.

At home, Congress launched an inquiry into the intelligence that had preceded the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in order to account for the attacks and to prevent any future incidents. Its remit allowed it to question both Bush and Cheney as well as the previous president and vice-president, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and in total more than 1,000 interviews were conducted. The report concluded that US leaders had underestimated the terror threat from Al-Qaeda. It recommended an overhaul of US intelligence and security agencies with the creation of a national counter-terrorism centre headed and coordinated by a national intelligence director. In December, many of the proposed reforms were enacted in a new intelligence bill. The search for WMD in Iraq was abandoned in January 2005.

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The 2004 Election and Second Term Issues

In March 2004 the Democratic senator for Massachusetts, John Kerry, won the Democratic nomination to run for the presidency against Bush. Meanwhile, Bush’s standing in the polls continued to fall as the numbers of US fatalities in Iraq increased. As the election neared, political analysts declared that the election would be one of the closest on record and early exit polls seemed to predict a narrow victory for Kerry. However, the appeal of Bush’s conservative values on issues such as abortion, stem cell research, and gay marriages cemented his victory and saw him returned to the White House with a greater share of the popular vote than he had achieved four years earlier. The continued involvement in Iraq strongly polarized voters, and observers declared the campaign one of the most divisive ever. The strength of feeling on both sides of the political divide was evidenced by the largest voter turnout since the 1960s.

Possessing a stronger mandate than four years previously, Bush’s plans for his second term included further tax reform, social security improvements, and education reform.

The Bush Administration faced severe criticism over its handling of the relief effort following the devastating Hurricane Katrina that hit the Gulf coast in August 2005. The hurricane hit the Gulf Coast of the United States with winds of more than 235 km/hr (145 mph). Louisiana was particularly seriously affected. The low-lying city of New Orleans was spared the brunt of the hurricane; however, the storm surge that built up on Lake Pontchartrain breached the city’s extensive system of flood defences. Floodwaters inundated the city, rendering it uninhabitable. A complete evacuation of the city was ordered amid fears that thousands may have died in the flooding. The evacuation of survivors quickly turned into a humanitarian crisis, with food and water in short supply and reports of looting and violence.

In March 2006 President Bush renewed the Patriot Act, though with a number of revisions and compromises after accusations of infringements of civil liberties. The Act, originally introduced in 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, gave the government unprecedented powers to investigate and detain terror suspects.

The administration fared badly in the mid-term congressional elections, held in November 2006. The Republicans lost control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Admitting that he and his allies had taken a “thumping”, Bush accepted the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense. The move was interpreted as an acknowledgement that the US strategy in Iraq had run into severe difficulties. In Rumsfeld’s place Bush nominated Robert Gates, who had served under Bush’s father as head of the CIA (1991-1993).