WI: Terrorists hit Congress instead of the Pentagon on 9/11 in 2001?

What if, instead of flying a plane into the pentagon on 9/11 in 2001 as they did in OTL, the terrorists instead flew the plane into the US Capitol building? Was congress in session at the time? How much damage would it have done? What would be the ramifications of such an attack?
 
If they hit it at the same time as in OTL, few if any Congressfolk are killed, i believe.
HOWEVER, I remember hearing somewhere that a Congressional barbecue was shedualed for later in the day...
 
Seems to me that if the capitol were destroyed, the Invasion of Afghanistan would be conducted in a downright vindictive manner, rather than merely in an atrociously botched and misguided way.
 
Are we sure people would be that upset if they blew up Congress ?

(obviously joking but someone had to go there)
 

Eurofed

Banned
(very likely) A constitutional amendment to provide for emergency continuity of the House of Representatives is ratified in 2003.

A bipartisan small group of Congressmen is selected to act as designated survivors in addition to a Cabinet member (this eventually happened in OTL, too, but here it would be set up faster).

(a bit less likely, but fairly so) the Presidential Succession Act is amended to place the Cabinet members immediately after the VPOTUS in the order of succession.
 
You could just simply have the passengers on United Airlines flight 93 simply not mob the attackers or have the hijackers somehow manage to beat them off/lock the cockpit. The possible targets of UA 93 was either the Capitol or the White House.
 
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(very likely) A constitutional amendment to provide for emergency continuity of the House of Representatives is ratified in 2003.

A bipartisan small group of Congressmen is selected to act as designated survivors in addition to a Cabinet member (this eventually happened in OTL, too, but here it would be set up faster).

(a bit less likely, but fairly so) the Presidential Succession Act is amended to place the Cabinet members immediately after the VPOTUS in the order of succession.


All 3 of these are likely had Flight 93 slammed into the U.S. Capitol.
 

Hyperion

Banned
All 3 of these are likely had Flight 93 slammed into the U.S. Capitol.

Even if Flight 93 makes it to Washington and hits either target, by that time most if not all of the high profile Congressmen and women, as well as most if not all of the high profile White House officials had either taken shelter, or had simply put as much distance between them and the buildings as possible.

One thing I would consider, if two planes would hit the WTC, why not have Flight 93 add to the damage at the Pentagon?
 
Even if Flight 93 makes it to Washington and hits either target, by that time most if not all of the high profile Congressmen and women, as well as most if not all of the high profile White House officials had either taken shelter, or had simply put as much distance between them and the buildings as possible.

One thing I would consider, if two planes would hit the WTC, why not have Flight 93 add to the damage at the Pentagon?

Mmmm, it'd be better to spread the attack out, and besides, given how the Capitol Building is THE most visible symbol of American political power, second only to the White House (which may have been too damn difficult to hit anyways), even if the attack itself killed nobody on the ground, the visual image and its symbolism would be just too good to pass up. From a propaganda perspective, what would be better? Two plumes of smoke billowing from the Pentagon (admittedly, that would be a better attack in terms of actually doing damage, and reconstruction would be a lot more time-consuming), or seeing the images of both the Capitol and the Pentagon in flames?

Besides being an extremely devastating attack in economic and human terms, this attack in particular, and terrorism in general, is also, if you will, a kind of political theater, as much for its symbolism as for its actual targets and such. The Twin Towers were chosen as the targets in New York because they fulfilled both the actual damage and the symbolic criteria, although the damage there went even beyond Bin Laden or Zawahiri's expectations. They were hoping at best to have a portion of the towers collapsed, or still on fire, which would have made recovery at the site even more difficult.

Coming back to the OP intent, I think, an even more devastating POD here would to simply have had Flight 93 and Flight 77 both take off on time (IIRC, 77 was not delayed long enough for the passengers to figure out what was happening on the ground). If the passengers on Flight 93 never had gotten those calls, or gotten them just miles outside of DC, there's nothing to stop the attack from going off completely as planned. On top of that, if the plane had impacted the Capitol Building before either the Pentagon or the South Tower was hit, that would actually kill a good number of Congressmen. Everything else that day as OTL, but a decent portion of Congress, House and Senate alike would have been taken out. The butterflies here would be massive. On the one hand, Congress itself would be even more in agreement on retaliation, and for that matter, much stronger retaliation (hit them that close to home, and no one in either party is going to object to even more stringent security, etc). The rest of the butterflies would depend on exactly who is killed/injured/in the building at the point of impact, but for the time being, the executive Branch would have more power and leeway to do whatever they wanted in retaliation.
 
...an even more devastating POD here would to simply have had Flight 93 and Flight 77 both take off on time...
Yes, the plot had intended the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Capitol/White House to be struck more or less simultaneously, to prevent time for anyone to react between attacks. Because of heavy runway traffic waiting for take-off, Flight 93 was around half an hour late on that schedule. Asking for a morning with lighter air-traffic doesn't seem too strange for a POD.
 
Mmmm, it'd be better to spread the attack out, and besides, given how the Capitol Building is THE most visible symbol of American political power, second only to the White House (which may have been too damn difficult to hit anyways), even if the attack itself killed nobody on the ground, the visual image and its symbolism would be just too good to pass up. From a propaganda perspective, what would be better? Two plumes of smoke billowing from the Pentagon (admittedly, that would be a better attack in terms of actually doing damage, and reconstruction would be a lot more time-consuming), or seeing the images of both the Capitol and the Pentagon in flames?

Besides being an extremely devastating attack in economic and human terms, this attack in particular, and terrorism in general, is also, if you will, a kind of political theater, as much for its symbolism as for its actual targets and such. The Twin Towers were chosen as the targets in New York because they fulfilled both the actual damage and the symbolic criteria, although the damage there went even beyond Bin Laden or Zawahiri's expectations. They were hoping at best to have a portion of the towers collapsed, or still on fire, which would have made recovery at the site even more difficult.

Coming back to the OP intent, I think, an even more devastating POD here would to simply have had Flight 93 and Flight 77 both take off on time (IIRC, 77 was not delayed long enough for the passengers to figure out what was happening on the ground). If the passengers on Flight 93 never had gotten those calls, or gotten them just miles outside of DC, there's nothing to stop the attack from going off completely as planned. On top of that, if the plane had impacted the Capitol Building before either the Pentagon or the South Tower was hit, that would actually kill a good number of Congressmen. Everything else that day as OTL, but a decent portion of Congress, House and Senate alike would have been taken out. The butterflies here would be massive. On the one hand, Congress itself would be even more in agreement on retaliation, and for that matter, much stronger retaliation (hit them that close to home, and no one in either party is going to object to even more stringent security, etc). The rest of the butterflies would depend on exactly who is killed/injured/in the building at the point of impact, but for the time being, the executive Branch would have more power and leeway to do whatever they wanted in retaliation.

It always struck me as odd that they didn't go for the Statue of Liberty too. THAT would have been a huge blow to the US to see that thing fall.
 
Coming back to the OP intent, I think, an even more devastating POD here would to simply have had Flight 93 and Flight 77 both take off on time (IIRC, 77 was not delayed long enough for the passengers to figure out what was happening on the ground). If the passengers on Flight 93 never had gotten those calls, or gotten them just miles outside of DC, there's nothing to stop the attack from going off completely as planned. On top of that, if the plane had impacted the Capitol Building before either the Pentagon or the South Tower was hit, that would actually kill a good number of Congressmen. Everything else that day as OTL, but a decent portion of Congress, House and Senate alike would have been taken out. The butterflies here would be massive. On the one hand, Congress itself would be even more in agreement on retaliation, and for that matter, much stronger retaliation (hit them that close to home, and no one in either party is going to object to even more stringent security, etc). The rest of the butterflies would depend on exactly who is killed/injured/in the building at the point of impact, but for the time being, the executive Branch would have more power and leeway to do whatever they wanted in retaliation.

By 9:30 am, the Capitol and White House had been evacuated in OTL. (I was working on Pennsylvania Ave on 9/11.) Indeed, rumors were flying that all sorts of other terror attacks had gone off -- including bombs at the Capitol and White House, chemical weapons in use on the Metro, just about anything you can imagine.

The way to reengineer this for maximum long-term political disruption is to have the first hijacked plane hit the Capitol at say, 1 pm, with the remaining planes hitting their targets as soon as possible thereafter.
 
It always struck me as odd that they didn't go for the Statue of Liberty too. THAT would have been a huge blow to the US to see that thing fall.

To our thinking yes, but AQ wasn't going for a "symbolic" attack on 9/11, it was intend as a strategic decapitation attack, taking out the political (White House or Capital, while definitely one, it's never been clear which), military (Pentagon), and economic, the Twin Towers leadership. As for why the Twin Towers instead of Treasury or Wall Street, we'll never know for sure... But there is a myth in a lot of the developing world that the Twin Towers are the HQ of the US's "state economic planning" (remember the majority of AQ's leaders/planners come from state owned/run economies they assume our economy runs the same).

There is evidence AQ leadership thought after these attacks the western economy would collapse and the civil war would break out in the US, allowing them to move on KSA and restore the Caliphate.

BTW, not just AQ, I remember listening to a TV news program in Bahrain in OCT 2001, with Arab "US experts" stating a US civil war would still happen despite "missing Bush" because the attacks had shown the "oppressed" the US government and military was wreak, fun stuff!
 
It always struck me as odd that they didn't go for the Statue of Liberty too. THAT would have been a huge blow to the US to see that thing fall.

Definitely would have been massively powerful propaganda, I think the only reason they didn't is because they had to pare their target list down from the original 10. Getting 4 planes hijacked and crashed within an hour or two of each other is hard enough, each plane ups the ante and increases the risk that one will get intercepted and/or shot down.

On the other hand, destroying that alone would have absolutely enraged the entire country, to say nothing of adding it on top of the original 9/11
 
It always struck me as odd that they didn't go for the Statue of Liberty too. THAT would have been a huge blow to the US to see that thing fall.

It would be a smaller target than anything they went for IIRC. It is big but not as big as the WTC or the Pentegon. They might have thought it to small to hit easily, they weren't trained that well. I think if that happened France would offer to replace it.
 
To our thinking yes, but AQ wasn't going for a "symbolic" attack on 9/11, it was intend as a strategic decapitation attack, taking out the political (White House or Capital, while definitely one, it's never been clear which), military (Pentagon), and economic, the Twin Towers leadership. As for why the Twin Towers instead of Treasury or Wall Street, we'll never know for sure... But there is a myth in a lot of the developing world that the Twin Towers are the HQ of the US's "state economic planning" (remember the majority of AQ's leaders/planners come from state owned/run economies they assume our economy runs the same).

There is evidence AQ leadership thought after these attacks the western economy would collapse and the civil war would break out in the US, allowing them to move on KSA and restore the Caliphate.

BTW, not just AQ, I remember listening to a TV news program in Bahrain in OCT 2001, with Arab "US experts" stating a US civil war would still happen despite "missing Bush" because the attacks had shown the "oppressed" the US government and military was wreak, fun stuff!

WOW, they had much bigger delusions of grandeur than I thought! :eek:
 
By 9:30 am, the Capitol and White House had been evacuated in OTL. (I was working on Pennsylvania Ave on 9/11.) Indeed, rumors were flying that all sorts of other terror attacks had gone off -- including bombs at the Capitol and White House, chemical weapons in use on the Metro, just about anything you can imagine.

The way to reengineer this for maximum long-term political disruption is to have the first hijacked plane hit the Capitol at say, 1 pm, with the remaining planes hitting their targets as soon as possible thereafter.

Assuming lunch break for most people in the Twin towers is over by then, that's going to be far far worse than OTL. Half the reason the death toll was so low was not just the relatively high level that the planes came in at, but also that they hit early in the morning, a lot of people were still getting to work. Do that, and you could easily have a 5-figure death toll, and just adding that magnitude to the attack could easily whirlwind the response god knows how far. Add in a significant level of political decapitation, I wouldn't be surprised to see a temporary declaration of martial law in the states.
 
Assuming lunch break for most people in the Twin towers is over by then, that's going to be far far worse than OTL. Half the reason the death toll was so low was not just the relatively high level that the planes came in at, but also that they hit early in the morning, a lot of people were still getting to work. Do that, and you could easily have a 5-figure death toll, and just adding that magnitude to the attack could easily whirlwind the response god knows how far. Add in a significant level of political decapitation, I wouldn't be surprised to see a temporary declaration of martial law in the states.


I would. It's not necessary. The states still have a functioning-pretty much everything. Unless it's a disease or simultaneous natural disasters affecting large states, Martial Law is pretty far off. The most you might see is government/banking holidays and MAYBE curfews called by state or local governments in larger cities.
 
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