DBWI: 9/11 Attacks Succeed

What if the 9/11 attacks were not intercepted before it happened? They say that the Twin Towers were targeted. As was the Pentagon and Capitol Building. Could all four targets get hit? Could there be anything to stop the terrorists once the planes are hijacked? What happens afterward? With the attackers being from a nice spread of Middle Eastern countries who would be punished?
 
The US has spent billions -- easily hundreds of billions, if not trillions -- on its air defense. From F-16s to F-15s and Patriot missiles, all branches of the armed forces have been active in ensuring that America owns the skies. So it's absolutely unthinkable that, on a given Tuesday morning in September, the nation could find itself without at least a squadron worth of Fighting Falcons or Eagles, armed with AMRAAMs and Sidewinders and ready to shoot down a hijacked airliner bent on causing terror on a massive scale. That's why it's difficult to imagine the 9/11 attacks being successful. The flights that originated in Boston were intercepted by F-15s from Otis AFB on Cape Cod less than 15 minutes after evidence of hijacking emerged.

It can't possibly have made a negative impact that NORAD staff were simulating a mass hijacking on the day the events became "real world." As Nena sang in "99 Red Balloons", "this is what we've waited for/this is it, boys, this is war." The very situation they had practiced so many times suddenly played out on the skies above Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania...

Could the attacks have succeeded? Perhaps, if you deepen Clinton's "peace dividend" cuts to the military so much that the world's greatest air force could muster, let's say, a couple of unarmed F-16s on the Day of Judgement. Even if that happened, we've got to consider the possibility of the hijacked passengers fighting back. The Washington, DC targets (if we are right to believe the 9/11 Commission's report) may have had Stinger missiles on hand, as well. So, the worst possible 9/11 I can imagine would be the impact of two planes into the World Trade Center. We have no way of knowing what result that might have had, although the building's designers have claimed the WTC was designed to withstand an impact of a Boeing jetliner somewhat smaller than the actual hijacked aircraft. Some engineers have said the lightweight structure of the WTC, based on floor trusses connecting a concrete core with a steel exterior, might have been vulnerable to fire, but, again, besides a few tests carried out by NIST, there's no real evidence to suggest the WTC's sprinklers and fireproofing would have failed. The buildings would, of course, be seriously damaged, and might even require demolition, but they would have remained standing long enough for emergency services to rescue the vast majority of the WTC's inhabitants.

And what if we go further than the worst case scenario -- what if we're wrong, and the WTC is destroyed? The political response would be what we saw, but on a larger scale. Massive Tomahawk and B-2 strikes against targets in Afghanistan, leading to the eventual collapse of the Taliban. Boots on the ground is a possibility, but I suspect it would be mostly special forces on missions to eliminate specific Al Qaeda leaders. The Soviet experience in Afghanistan was enough to demonstrate that that's not a country suitable for long-term military activity.
 
It's a good thing President Gore ordered various law enforcement branches to work together, which foiled the plot.

Considering how close the election was, you could easily see an alternate "Bush administration" not catching on so quickly.

One things for sure. With the US concentrating on the Taliban and Al Queda strongholds in Afganistan, Saddam Hussain is off the hook.
 
The US has spent billions -- easily hundreds of billions, if not trillions -- on its air defense. From F-16s to F-15s and Patriot missiles, all branches of the armed forces have been active in ensuring that America owns the skies. So it's absolutely unthinkable that, on a given Tuesday morning in September, the nation could find itself without at least a squadron worth of Fighting Falcons or Eagles, armed with AMRAAMs and Sidewinders and ready to shoot down a hijacked airliner bent on causing terror on a massive scale. That's why it's difficult to imagine the 9/11 attacks being successful. The flights that originated in Boston were intercepted by F-15s from Otis AFB on Cape Cod less than 15 minutes after evidence of hijacking emerged.

It can't possibly have made a negative impact that NORAD staff were simulating a mass hijacking on the day the events became "real world." As Nena sang in "99 Red Balloons", "this is what we've waited for/this is it, boys, this is war." The very situation they had practiced so many times suddenly played out on the skies above Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania...

Could the attacks have succeeded? Perhaps, if you deepen Clinton's "peace dividend" cuts to the military so much that the world's greatest air force could muster, let's say, a couple of unarmed F-16s on the Day of Judgement. Even if that happened, we've got to consider the possibility of the hijacked passengers fighting back. The Washington, DC targets (if we are right to believe the 9/11 Commission's report) may have had Stinger missiles on hand, as well. So, the worst possible 9/11 I can imagine would be the impact of two planes into the World Trade Center. We have no way of knowing what result that might have had, although the building's designers have claimed the WTC was designed to withstand an impact of a Boeing jetliner somewhat smaller than the actual hijacked aircraft. Some engineers have said the lightweight structure of the WTC, based on floor trusses connecting a concrete core with a steel exterior, might have been vulnerable to fire, but, again, besides a few tests carried out by NIST, there's no real evidence to suggest the WTC's sprinklers and fireproofing would have failed. The buildings would, of course, be seriously damaged, and might even require demolition, but they would have remained standing long enough for emergency services to rescue the vast majority of the WTC's inhabitants.

And what if we go further than the worst case scenario -- what if we're wrong, and the WTC is destroyed? The political response would be what we saw, but on a larger scale. Massive Tomahawk and B-2 strikes against targets in Afghanistan, leading to the eventual collapse of the Taliban. Boots on the ground is a possibility, but I suspect it would be mostly special forces on missions to eliminate specific Al Qaeda leaders. The Soviet experience in Afghanistan was enough to demonstrate that that's not a country suitable for long-term military activity.

The US might have invaded other countries. Maybe Iraq, Iran, Syria. Yeman. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan would have been potential targets at some point. I think the US would have militarily over extended itself in foreign wars. probably bankrupted itself in the process and likely suffered severe political division with a growing ant war movement, ~Maybe a political maverick like Donald Trump would have been elected as President is such a scenario with a promise to "save the country"
 
The US might have invaded other countries. Maybe Iraq, Iran, Syria. Yeman. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan would have been potential targets at some point. I think the US would have militarily over extended itself in foreign wars. probably bankrupted itself in the process and likely suffered severe political division with a growing ant war movement, ~Maybe a political maverick like Donald Trump would have been elected as President is such a scenario with a promise to "save the country"
I heard a Congressional inquiry recently found the Saudis had bankrolled a 'dry-run' a few days before the attackers went to America. Could they be a actual target? Would we install a American democracy or what?
 
I heard a Congressional inquiry recently found the Saudis had bankrolled a 'dry-run' a few days before the attackers went to America. Could they be a actual target? Would we install a American democracy or what?

Didn't the same Congressional Inquiry indicate involvement by Pakistan's ISI and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Would it have made a difference to the Arab Spring had the US invaded Iraq and Pakistan in the early 2000s?

Would we have avoided the 2012 US/India intervention in the Pakistani Civil War to prevent Pakistani nukes falling into Jihadist hands and the 100000 casualties resulting from the Lahore Nuclear Detonation? And would we still have had the Iraqi, Saudi and Syrian Civil Wars coalescing into the Great Middle East War starting in June 2014 du to the Arab Spring Revolutions, a conflict that still engulfs the region as we speak?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
It's a good thing President Gore ordered various law enforcement branches to work together, which foiled the plot.

Considering how close the election was, you could easily see an alternate "Bush administration" not catching on so quickly.

One things for sure. With the US concentrating on the Taliban and Al Queda strongholds in Afganistan, Saddam Hussain is off the hook.
To be honest, given his promise of a humble foreign policy, I'm not even sure that Bush would have removed the Taliban from power; rather, he might simply engage in undercover CIA operations to capture and/or kill Osama Bin Laden and the other al-Qaeda leaders (while keeping the Taliban in power in Afghanistan, of course).
 

SpookyBoy

Banned
The attacks happen on September 11 instead of November 9.
The November 9 attacks only killed what, 80 people? How many people were in and around the Twin Towers, Capitol and Pentagon on September 11? I'm guessing it would've been something like Pearl Harbor scale.
 
OOC: How did that happen?

The Afghan Taliban ideology inspired a revolt among the frontier tribes in 2002 and the army could not deal with the insurgency. Over several years instability in Pakistan grew and started to gt out of control. Then some general tried another coup (the last in a succession of coups and coup attempts) /It went badly wrong of course at which point the army and the country split apart. That started the civil war n December 2011. By March 2012 it was clear that nukes were going to be used and/or fall into extremist hands. On April 1 came the rebl captur of th nuke that was used that day in the strike on Lahore. That is when the US sent in 18th Airborne Corps in alliance with India to stop the fighting and secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal
 
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