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commemorations of the 2001 attacks

Ongoing anniversary observances, memorial gatherings, educational efforts, and public reflections marking the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including political ceremonies, personal remembrances, and assessments of the attacks' lasting impact on American society and collective memory.

Matthew Klimow publishes 9/11 Pentagon account on 25th anniversary

Illustration accompanying article: Matthew Klimow publishes 9/11 Pentagon account on 25th anniversary
  • Matthew Klimow, the retired Army colonel who served as executive assistant to the top US military officer on September 11, 2001, has published a first-person account of the Pentagon attack.
  • Klimow's book "As the Pentagon Burned" details how he relayed warnings between senior leaders on the morning the Pentagon was struck, including a 30-minute period when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was unreachable.
  • The book recounts friction between Norad and the air national guard over rules of engagement, and communication gaps that delayed the fighter response to Washington.
  • Captain Chris Donahue, the aide Klimow ordered to retrieve General Myers on 9/11, later became the last US soldier to leave Afghanistan in August 2021.
 2026-09-11 · 4 MIN READ

Historians and former officials assess 25-year legacy of US response to 9/11 attacks

Illustration accompanying article: Historians and former officials assess 25-year legacy of US response to 9/11 attacks
  • The Guardian published a 25th-anniversary retrospective on September 11, 2026, gathering historians, former officials and a victim's widow to assess the consequences of the US response to the 2001 attacks.
  • Nearly 3,000 people were killed on September 11, 2001, when 19 al-Qaida hijackers seized four airliners, slamming two into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and one into a field in western Pennsylvania.
  • The US invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 and Iraq in 2003; the Guardian reported that the Iraq war was launched on the false premise that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and that "hundreds of thousands of lives" were lost across both wars.
  • Bill Galston, a former Bill Clinton policy adviser, told the Guardian "9/11 is when things began to go wrong for the United States" and described "a quarter-century of misgovernment" that had cost the country "a great deal of not only our power but our credibility."
  • Former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said the attacks "prompted such an overreach from the United States that we hastened our own decline, division and betrayal of our own story."
 2026-09-11 · 4 MIN READ
Illustration accompanying article: Trump to observe 9/11 anniversary at Pentagon; Vance to attend NYC ceremony