The 9/11 Al Qaeda terrorist attack on this city and this nation occurred nearly two dozen years ago and has long entered the history books, but chapters are still being written about the perpetrators and the victims.
While Osama Bin Laden and the 19 hijackers he sent are dead (and are the only individuals not included in the lists of the 2,977 fatalities) the mastermind of the attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is being well cared for by the U.S. military in his cell in Guantanamo.
Last summer, the Pentagon’s director of the Office of Military Commissions agreed to a plea deal with KSM and two other 9/11 conspirators locked up in Gitmo, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, that would rule out the death penalty for these most guilty of prisoners. We and many 9/11 families were outraged, as the hangman is the only proper sentence for such horrific crimes. Also outraged was the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who ordered the deal canceled.
The matter has since been in the courts and last week a federal appeals panel ruled that Austin was within his rights to reject the deal, meaning that the possibility of a death sentence has now been restored. And KSM has again started worrying that he will be put to death.
Agreeing with the distinguished Austin (a former 4-star Army general) is his successor, the incompetent and unfit Pete Hegseth (who took it upon himself to stop a needed arms shipment to the brave Ukrainians and disclosed secret info on a group chat). But despite their differences, both want KSM to hang if convicted, as do we.
Besides the Gitmo prosecution, which will now resume — assuming the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t side with KSM — also continuing is the agony for people whose health was damaged by the toxic cloud that rose over New York when the World Trade Center fell. While the fight in Congress for permanent fully-funded health coverage for WTC responders and survivors goes on, there is another fight right here in City Hall.
9/11 families, advocates and members of Congress have for years been asking the mayor’s office for any documents related to the hazardous conditions at Ground Zero and in the adjacent areas. Those inquiries have been rebuffed and Freedom of Information Law requests denied and there has been litigation. But now the City Council has advanced a binding resolution using a power granted under City Charter for the first time ever.
The resolution “directs the Department of Investigation to conduct an investigation to ascertain the knowledge possessed by mayoral administrations on environmental toxins produced by the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and to submit a report to the Council.” DOI would have two years to produce the report.
Mayors Mike Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams, listening to their lawyers, have been wary of liability coming from the disclosures. But that’s highly unlikely. Anyone who joined the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund (the original VCF or the revived VCF) is barred from ever suing.
If someone else was to sue, the city is capped at $350 million in WTC damages by an act of Congress. Furthermore, there is the city-controlled WTC Captive Insurance Company, funded by Congress with $330 million on hand, which would pay any claims, but our guess is that that won’t be any claims.
Whatever records exist in the city’s files have to be made public. A good time for DOI to issue its report would be before Sept. 11, 2026, a quarter of a century since that awful day.
