9/11 anniversary: Twenty years on, US and the world face a painful reflection of a life-changing moment
In the spot where the Twin Towers once stood, there is now a calmness – a peace in the heart of New York City.
The only sound is water, cascading endlessly into two vast square voids, one for each tower.
They are voids that will never be filled, representing holes for so many who mourn the loss of so many more.
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9/11: How the day unfolded
On the tip of Manhattan, the scene is set to reflect on nearly 3,000 lives lost and a moment that changed the world.
The ceremony will begin at 8.40am New York time (1.40pm UK) – six minutes before the first plane hit the north tower 20 years ago – on September 11 2001.
Former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama will join President Joe Biden for a ceremony punctuated by six stark moments of silence: three to mark the planes hitting the two towers and the Pentagon in Washington, two to mark the collapse of each tower, and one to mark the moment the fourth plane came down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
President George W Bush will be in Shanksville for the ceremony there, and President Donald Trump will mark the day with a series of as-yet-unpublished stops.
Over the coming hours, relatives and survivors will share their stories and reflect on their individual loss.
Flight crews will gather in uniform, pausing for their lost colleagues – their friends.
Firefighters, many too young to remember 9/11, will pay their respects to those who ran towards danger to rescue those trapped in the towers, including the first responders who lost their lives.
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‘We wondered if we were still alive’
Over two hours, the names of each of those to die that day will be read out, one by one.
Twenty years ago, President George W Bush was at Ground Zero, megaphone in hand, reflecting the mood of a nation consumed by a deep trauma and a bewilderment that demanded revenge.
“The people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon,” he declared.
Who would have thought that presidential vow all those years ago would be a central thread through three more American presidencies and define our collective history in the subsequent two decades.
Long conflicts in Afghanistan, then Iraq, followed. A “war on terror” waged. By definition, it required a victory that would always be elusive.
So many lives were lost in the past two decades.
The US was consumed by revenge but also wrapped up in a desire to change and remake the world according to its own image and to achieve that by force.
Increasingly it proved to be a futile and dangerous objective that brought out the worst in America. In trying to export its own values, the US was in fact repudiating them.
Key moments would be proved over time to have been mistakes causing irrevocable damage.
The missed opportunities such as the failure to capture bin Laden in the Afghan mountains in November 2001. He was to escape into Pakistan and evade capture for a decade.
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What is the legacy of 9/11?
Policy decisions such as diverting attention away from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2003 on the elusive hunt for weapons of mass destruction.
Then there was the CIA rendition flights, the torture, the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and of course Guantanamo.
Twenty years after 9/11, 40 prisoners remain at Guantanamo. Most have not been charged, none have yet faced trial. They include the 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
The latest inflection point in these past two decades has been Mr Biden’s chaotic retreat from Afghanistan. History is yet to judge the wisdom of that decision.
The legacy of 9/11 has been dramatic and it is enduring.
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9/11 British survivor: ‘It shifted my world’
Twenty years might have helped individuals to begin to heal, but collectively, for America and well beyond, two decades of conflict has stirred so much and healed almost nothing.
Professor Bruce Hoffman, senior fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations, told me this week: “I think the sad truth of the matter is that if bin Laden were alive today, he’d be a happy man.
“Firstly, the enterprise that he commenced over three decades ago has withstood what really is the technologically most advanced military in the history of mankind and survived. It has continually overcome whatever setbacks have been meted out to it. And now that we see with the victory of the Taliban, the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan, which was always bin Laden’s kind of pet project, has once again been resurrected.”
He added: “But more to the point, according to the US State Department list of foreign terrorist organisations, there are now four times as many Salafi jihadi groups that adhere to bin Laden’s ideology today than there were on 9/11.”
For New York, for America and well beyond, this will be painful reflection of such an extraordinary moment.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States, going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Pic: Reuters
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
Later on Monday, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Mr Trump and said he was “grateful” for the US president’s “readiness to help protect our people’s lives”.
After criticising Vladimir Putin’s “desire to drag it out”, he said he appreciated “preparing a new decision on Patriots for Ukraine” – and added Kyiv is “working on major defence agreements with America”.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump over Mr Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump threatens Russia with ‘severe’ tariffs’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call”, but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Mr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
US
Trump is clearly fed up with Putin – but will his shift in tone force Russia to the negotiating table?
As ever, there is confusion and key questions are left unanswered, but Donald Trump’s announcement on Ukraine and Russia today remains hugely significant.
His shift in tone and policy on Ukraine is stark. And his shift in tone (and perhaps policy) on Russia is huge.
Ever since Mr Trump returned to the White House he has flatly refused to side with Ukraine over the Russian invasion.
He has variously blamed Ukraine for the invasion and blamed Joe Biden for the invasion, but has never been willing to accept that Russia is the aggressor and that Ukraine has a legitimate right to defend itself.
Today, all that changed. In a clear signal that he is fed up with Vladimir Putin and now fully recognises the need to help Ukraine defend itself, he announced the US will dramatically increase weapons supplies to Kyiv.
Pic: Reuters
But, in keeping with his transactional nature and in a reflection of the need to keep his isolationist “America-First” base on side, he has framed this policy shift as a multi-billion dollar “deal” in which America gains financially.
American weapons are to be “sold” to NATO partners in Europe who will then either transfer them to Ukraine or use them to bolster their own stockpiles as they transfer their own existing stocks to Kyiv.
“We’ve made a deal today,” the president said in the Oval Office. “We are going to be sending them weapons, and they are paying for them. We are manufacturing, they are going to be paying for it. Our meeting last month was very successful… these are wealthy nations.”
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What will Trump’s weapons deal mean for Ukraine?
This appears to be a clever framing of the “deal”. Firstly, America has always benefited financially by supplying weapons to Ukraine because much of the investment has been in American factories, American jobs and American supply chains.
While the details are not entirely clear, the difference now appears to be that the weapons would be bought by the Europeans or by NATO as an alliance.
The Americans are the biggest contributor to NATO, and so if the alliance is buying the weapons, America too will be paying, in part, for the weapons it is selling.
However, if the weapons are being bought by individual NATO members to replenish their own stocks, then it may be the case that the US is not paying.
NATO officials referred all questions on this issue to the White House, which has not yet provided clarity to Sky News.
It is also not yet clear what type of weapons will be made available and whether it will include offensive, as well defensive, munitions.
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Will Trump’s deal make a difference?
A key element of the package will likely be Patriot missile batteries, 10 to 15 of which are believed to be currently in Europe.
Under this deal, it is understood that some of them will be added to the six or so batteries believed to be presently in Ukraine. New ones would then be purchased from US manufacturers to backfill European stocks. A similar arrangement may be used for other weapons.
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The president also issued the Russian leader with an ultimatum, saying that Putin had 50 days to make a peace deal or else face 100% “secondary tariffs”. It’s thought this refers to a plan to tariff, or sanction, third countries that supply Russia with weapons and buy Russian oil.
This, the Americans hope, will force those countries to apply pressure on Russia.
But the 50-day kicking of the can down the road also gives Russia space to prevaricate. So, a few words of caution: first, the Russians are masters of prevarication. Second, Trump tends to let deadlines slip. And third, we all know Trump can flip-flop on his position repeatedly.
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‘Trump sides with the Ukrainian cause’
Maybe the most revealing aspect of all this came when a reporter asked Mr Trump: “How far are you willing to go if Putin sends more bombs in the coming days?”
“Don’t ask me questions like that…”
Mr Trump doesn’t really know what to do if Mr Putin continues to take him for a ride.
Mr Biden, before him, supplied Ukraine with the weapons to continue fighting.
If Mr Trump wants to end this, he may need to provide Ukraine with enough weapons to win.
But that would prolong, or even escalate, a war he wants to end now.
There’s the predicament.
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